Last week I had strange dreams each night. I would wake up scared or sad or confused. I didn't once wake up rested. I felt stale instead of refreshed, as if all of my enthusiasm for the day had already been sucked out of me before I even lifted the covers.
For a while I blamed the winter blues. I ate a juicy orange, practiced yoga, and even went to a Zumba class. But then -- slowly, because my processing is a long, slow affair -- I started to realize that it wasn't just the end of January exhaustion I was feeling. It was the life-sucking death trap of comparison. Comparison commingled with relying on my own strength in lieu of God.
I didn't mean to compare.
I didn't mean to doubt God.
I just worried I wasn't good enough, or right enough, or well, frankly, enough all around. I have practiced these feelings for so long that they have inevitably become habitual. Instead of life, I carried around stale comparison, which was heavy and tiring. I spent my days worrying about this and that, and looking online to see what others were doing. What I saw was good. People in the world are doing good, lovely work. But immediately I felt like what they were doing would be far better and lovelier than anything I might possibly do.