Relief Society rocked today. I love it when people open up and share personal stories and/or connections to the doctrine we're discussing. Today's lesson centered on the Uchtdorf talk, "The Hope of God's Light," about surviving periods of darkness in our lives and finding ways to get back to the light.
"It is part of our condition as mortal beings to sometimes feel as though we are surrounded by darkness. We might have lost a loved one; a child might have strayed; we might have received a troubling medical diagnosis; we might have employment challenges and be burdened by doubts or fears; or we might feel alone or unloved."
We had some great discussion, and I'm not sure I've ever heard quite as much mention of therapy and depression in a Relief Society lesson as I did today. Powerful stuff. It got me thinking about the dark spots in my own life--we all have them--and one period of darkness in particular kept popping into my mind. I didn't have a chance to share my story during the lesson, since I found myself engrossed by the experiences, trials, and tearful testimonies of the other sisters, so guess who gets to hear it instead?
2001 found me living in Salt Lake County, working in Utah County, and surviving one of the loneliest times of my then twenty-seven-year-old life. I remember my little brother writing "27 is heaven!" on my birthday card that year, cute kid, but sadly little Brettsky couldn't have been more wrong. After having lived in Utah for almost a decade, give or take a few years for my mission, I had had more roommates than I can even remember. The last set I lived with in Provo and then Draper had a sense of finality to it, and when two of them married, a few moved away, and one went on a mission, I moved into a much smaller apartment with only one other girl. We got along well enough, but we both had demanding jobs and varied interests that didn't give us a ton of time to really bond like I had with past roomies.
At one point, Roomie #326 took a job waiting tables at night, so when I'd come home from a full day of teaching I'd have the apartment to myself all evening. Most people would have loved that freedom, but I found it gave me way too much time to think about the reality of my situation: my friends all seemed happily married or situated or relocated, and there I sat all alone in my apartment with nothing to do but watch TV and put off grading papers. I spent many an evening at Barnes and Noble, cozied up in a chair reading a book and happy as a clam to be doing so, but I always came home to that same loneliness, that same sense that everybody else was enjoying something I wasn't, that same feeling of "What am I doing wrong that I don't get to have that?"
After a rough winter and the closest I'd ever come to feeling depressed, I took a risk and decided to move to California. I was scared to death to leave the familiarity of my life and friends in Utah. I felt the weight of the risk that things could be worse, lonelier, unhappier in CA than they had been in UT, but thanks to a family fast on my behalf, I somehow mustered up the courage and did it. I took a job, I rented a house, I moved my stuff, I relocated. And then it happened. I fulfilled my own prophecy and found myself so painfully alone those first few weeks in Cali--even though I had a great friend move out there with me, who was busy training for her new job--that I sunk down pretty deep into that darkness. I began to regret and question the move, I started to believe that things really would get worse instead of better, and I felt incredibly helpless and alone.
Despite the dark loneliness I felt in that moment, however, deep down I knew I didn't have to feel that way. I knew I didn't have to go through this all alone, that I was choosing to try and fix everything by myself, and that that choice had to do with why I kept failing at it over and over again. So I knelt down on the dusty hardwood floor of that little, overpriced, Los Gatos house, surrounded by boxes and furniture that needed to be unpacked and arranged, and uttered one of the most desperate prayers of my life. Prayer catharsis, you might call it. I cried and cried and spilled my true, honest guts out in a way I never had before. I admitted to wanting to get married, something I deeply desired but was kind of scared to say out loud in case it wasn't in the cards for me. I admitted to wanting to be a mom. I admitted to not knowing how to make those things happen.
And somewhere in the process of uttering all those obvious yet hidden-deep-inside-truths, the light began to creep back in a little. A very little. But enough little to let me know that someone greater than myself cared for me, was aware of my needs, wanted to help me figure out a way to be happy. Out came the pad and paper. Out came the list of dreams, broken down into more manageable goals, which were then broken down into action-items and tasks I could do to help reach those goals.
Dream #1 = get married.
Goals =
live in the manner of marriage,
put forth all the effort I could,
find a way to be happy without it
Action-items =
serve my roommate as much as possible
(do all the dishes rather than just my own),
fast for it--getting married--once a month (so humbling),
commit to my ward (go to all activities, make an effort to meet people),
become the kind of person I want to marry
(completely living the gospel, active, healthy, hard-working),
attend the temple twice a month,
do things that make me happy
(play tennis, learn yoga, make friends, read, write, hike, run).
It was only a list. Inspired by only a prayer. But somehow I felt very empowered by both. A little more in control of a feeling or state of mind that I'd allowed to control me for way too long. I felt like I had a plan, a purpose, a way to fight the darkness and strive for more light. I understood the promise that President Uchtdorf describes in his talk:
"Brothers and sisters, even after the darkest night, the Savior of the world will lead you to a gradual, sweet, and bright dawn that will assuredly rise within you."
