Long, Dark Tunnel

We spent yesterday watching our senior daughter march in her last marching festival.  It has become an annual tradition to go spend the day watching the bands showcase their hard work.

I had half of my daily serving before we left (it is my habit to eat half at lunch and the other half at dinner) but didn't pack any for the road.  Knowing that I wouldn't be able to heat it, I felt that it would just be best to eat when we got home.

At about 5:30, though, a couple came and sat in front of us with fat juicy burgers and homemade fries.  Ugh!

By 6:30, I was ready to leave. And I cried through my family's meal at our traditional stop on marching festival days--Vista Drive-In. The rest of the evening was not pretty.

When we got home about an hour and a half later, I made up a batch of Numana and finally had the second 1/2 of my daily serving.

But my mind was already in that bad place.

I read something recently about fasting that said that our inner struggle and suffering during fasting affects our behavior to reveal our true selves and to show us areas that we need to improve in our lives.  If this is true, I don't like my true self much...if at all.

It's almost like I want everyone around me to be as miserable as I am. I find that I am argumentative and confrontational. Little things get turned into big things. Small worries become overwhelming barriers.

Honestly, it scares me when I get like this.

In my past I have found myself in that long black tunnel of depression. These hours of despair that I have wrestled with throughout this project feel like a compact but magnified version of that same tunnel.

There is no light.  It seems there is no way out. In fact, I'm unable to see past the emotions, fears, and anxiety that have me in their grasp during those times.

Scary.

However, with this project I am able to eat something, crawl in my comfy bed, go to sleep and wake up to a new day.  And I know that this is temporary.  I know that this suffering has a bigger purpose. I can see past the despair today.

In a depression, the solution isn't that simple.

In starving counties, that solution (all of it--the meal, the comfy bed, the good night's sleep, and a more hopeful day) is non-existent.

I can't imagine feeling like I felt last night every single day. It's crushing and beyond my ability to explain in a way to make you understand.

Will this project really end for me when it's over? I can't imagine that these glimpses of hunger that have been revealed to me through this project haven't changed my life forever.