So if you'd like to take me on a nerd journey for just a minute..this blog is based on the one of the recent Doctor Who episodes and how my last couple weeks combine, but keep reading because it'll make sense even if you haven't seen the episode yet.
The colors of fall have come upon us and almost already left quite rapidly. The end of the beauty of fall and the fantastic warm days that are just made for one to spend outside is always hard to stomach. And it starts to look to me as if nothing really lasts. My mind always wanders from seeing the inevitable end of something to wondering why I should invest in anything in the first place. I start to look around at what my life looks like and all the repetition it holds. It starts to feel like everything has either already been done before or won’t last long enough to justify the time and the value I have placed on it.
My mind starts to wander to questions like…
If everything really has been done before, why worry? Why feel? What is really the point? Why would anything matter?
And if I’m only one piece in the puzzle and caught in the system just like everyone else, the life in which I’m so caught up in would be tiny and insignificant in the vast scheme of things.
This spiral of thoughts always hits me really hard as the seasons change and the fall beauty leaves once again. But this year I want to challenge this head on.
This made a little more sense when I watched the Doctor Who episode where the Doctor had “accidentally” made a girl immortal and this episode showed us what that immortality did to her. She lived long enough know that it was inevitable that she would watch everyone whom she loved die. She said that she had lost more than she could possibly remember. This pain became so raw and deep in her that in order to protect herself she began to belittle everyone else’s lives as if they were insignificant. To her, their lives were so small, repetitive, and meaningless that she couldn’t bear to invest nor to begin to value life.
She said that their lives were so short that it wouldn’t matter anyway if they would be cut a little bit shorter. She justified all the hurt and pain she had caused with the fact that she was looking for an escape from it all. But once she realized she couldn't escape the situation and that many people were experiencing deep pain as a result of her actions, she cried out in anguish, “What have I done??”
This one short life was all they had and she was throwing it away left and right as if they were all insignificant.
So the episode ended after she turned the very person's life immortal that she was going to throw away as if he were insignificant. As a result, the two of them most likely spent the rest of their lives together (however that works when you're both immortal, ha).
But the point is that she woke up.
Her heart came alive again.
She began to care for the people around her once more. And she stopped forgetting about the gift of life that was going by so fast every single day. Even though the pain and the struggles of life were still very real, she began to value the little time that each one had as one of the most precious and exciting things ever.
What if the time we each have here is so valuable but so exceedingly short? We would want to make the most of what we have.
Why not feel the joy with the pain and be ridiculous enough to just enjoy the moments as they come because they’ll never come again?
In the episode, the friend that she saved, Sam Swift the Quick, showed us what this means, he didn’t think twice very often and everyone had quite a few laughs because of that.
I think God gave us emotions to remind us that we are alive. I never want to just survive another day. I want to actually live it..feel it and experience every moment of it because it’ll never come again.
Life’s a journey in progress, but I think it comes down to two different perspectives. Either every day is worth it no matter how much of a struggle it may be or life is just a repetitive struggle to drown out the pain.
It doesn’t make any more sense to me since I’ve been thinking this through. And knowing all this doesn’t make depression any less of a struggle, but my goal in writing this is to hopefully remind myself of a much needed perspective when I read back over it later, so thanks for following me along.
