But I hesitate.

I've been struggling with some things more than I have wanted to share lately. I don't want to and can't tell you all of them. The past two days, I've felt in the mornings like I put on my stinking coat again, cover up all the ill and the wretchedness I feel, and go on being this person I've constructed of myself. I don't think it's this place getting to me, I think it's me getting to me. I don't like uncertainty. I like to know. There's more uncertainty creeping into my life than I would like or really anticipated a few months ago.

Uncertainty about the next semester is hitting me hard. Uncertainty about returning to the States for break is making me uncomfortable. Uncertainty in... knowing, that's the hardest uncertainty right now. And in knowing how to know. I'm oscillating rapidly between the two emotional poles of depression and happiness, and it's at the times of happiness that the uncertainty grabs me and tears me down to the depression. I used to want emotional stability, and I still do. But I find myself thinking of emotional stability as secondary to my state. That is, I can choose to be joyful, I can choose to be peaceful, I can choose to be loving. None of these are emotions. All of these can stand independent of my emotional state. Really, I can have peace, and still be depressed. I can find joy even while angry. I can be loving even when I am hurting. And I can be loving when I am happy, joyful when I am compassionate, peaceful when I am laughing.

It's that choice that I have to make. And as I look at what I see coming up in my life, I see choices that I have to make. What overtakes me is the doubt in making those choices. I know the ones that I want to make, I just don't know if they are the right choices. And I so I choose to receive peace, because I know that peace will quiet my heart and calm the storms within. I choose to be joyful, for I know that my joy will permeate the rest of my life, and be a help to those around me. I choose to be loving, for I know that without love, I am nothing more than a hollow cacophony.

Make no mistake, my choices about receiving these states are not always perfect. I don't always take the paths I should. My struggles these recent days have been a result of not taking the gifts given to me. Rest and comfort are found when I surrender my pride, when I surrender my own need to know with absolute certainty the measure of my days. When I instead simply trust that these things will work for good. When the easy response to trials becomes an acknowledgment that there are Brighter days ahead, when this will be no more, but will be so much more.