Outside my apartment window, palm trees look like hurried and harried old women, bent and tired, their green wigs askew. The sidewalks are more water than cement. The night sky keeps lighting up with streaks, bright and distant that bellow against the world. There has been a mighty storm this week, here in Los Angeles. In the state of sunshine, clouds came.

I love it.

There is something about the cold that makes me feel safe. Makes me feel like I know the world a little bit more, closer to the sky when it is touching my face with it’s heavy tears. It’s like the clouds are a shelter, and with the grey sky weighing down on me, I feel a little less like a burden. Which is weird, because I feel God best when the night sky is pitch black and the line between my small existence and forever seems a little blurred.

But despite the weather, I’m unhappy. It’s not like I have a reason to be particularly unhappy. I should be ecstatic. I’m studying what I say I love. I’m leaving for Africa to do missions for 3 months (a lifetime dream) in 3 months. Then my dream of living in the mountains is the next semester after that. I’m not overwhelmed with school, quite the opposite. It’s not transitory sadness, because I’ve been here for almost a month now.

I don’t know. I don’t what to do with it. It is like a tangible presence. It’s nothing like depression. It’s just being down. And I don’t know how to just be patient and be unhappy for a while. I want to fix it.

The Jars of Clay album, A Long Fall Back Down To Earth, has been my playlist of the week. It’s not a particular sad CD. In fact, it is incredibly hopeful. And I haven’t really lost hope, or anything like that. And I don’t think hope or joy has anything to do with this. It is just being unhappy, being sadden, feeling the heaviness of the blue sky and the grey clouds all the same.

Advertisement