Dark Night

It is winter, I am living farther to the north than I grew up, and the seasonal depression is starting to kick in. Or maybe it is hormonal shifts, or the nest emptying, or who knows what all! I am using my full-spectrum lights, and they help. I am trying to eat my cold-water fish with its health Omega faty acids, and I am sure this helps too. I am praying as much as I can, too. But still I can sometimes hear the voice in the back of my brain with the taunts, "Is this all there is? What is the point? Wouldn't the world go on just as well, maybe better, if you weren't there to clutter it up? Look at all the mistakes you have made, all the sins you have committed, all the people you have hurt! Just give up....." I am not a gifted poet like dylan . I know that I have many God given talents. I am a talented midwife, an excellent teacher, and a good cook. My children, while far from perfect, are turning out OK given the relative youth and inexperience of their parents. My husband loves me dearly. I know that God loves me, that His Mother cherishes me, and that I have many friends in the communion of saints, both living and dead. And yet, the despair strikes, sometimes like a bold of lightning, sometimes like a rodent gnawing away at my soul. Time to pull out my rosary again.