So there I was in an overwhelming stupor of depression, living in a new country, brokenhearted. A couple of times I was so out of it, I left my house in the middle of the night and walked the streets of my town, tears streaming down my face, rage erupting out of my heart. My mom visited. My good friend visited. Nothing seemed to help. I was a verifiable mess. I’d rally for two hours at a time, then fall again into the trenches of despair. I did what I knew to do: I read my Bible, I journaled, I prayed. I went on walks or runs. I tried to forgive and snap out of it. But there are some sorrows and some disappointments, some betrayals we don’t just snap out of. We walk through them to the other side, and life is never the same again.
My two children watched me go through it, and were far too young to understand. They were confused and, quite honestly, very alone. I made their lunch every day and sent them to school in a foreign language where they knew no one. My daughter called me most mornings on her phone during recess, hiding in the bathroom stall. She’d tell me she was being brave, but the sound of her sniffles told me her bravery was costing far more than it is supposed to cost an eight-year-old child. My own sorrow was so poignant, so visceral, that I could not for the life of me, haul myself out of it enough to make any clear-minded decisions. I lived one day at a time….
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