Today I do not have to work at the newspaper. And I mostly don’t have to work for church.

But tomorrow, Friday and Saturday I do work at the newspaper. Then, I have church stuff all day Sunday. Then, I work at the newspaper Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Then, Saturday I’m going to my mom’s to see my little sister perform in Beauty in the Beast (Junior). Then, church all day Sunday. Then, work the next five days after that. Then the next Saturday I’m driving to Indiana to see my cousin get married. (YAY!). Then, I’m driving back overnight and so I can do church stuff all day Sunday. Then work at the newspaper Monday.

AND THEN.

FINALLY.

On Tuesday, Oct. 5 I have a day to myself again.

Tuesday.

October 5.

That’s the next day I get to sleep.

Don’t you get glorious feelings just dreaming about it?

Lately, I’ve been so busy that I feel a little like I can’t breathe when I try to mentally calculate when exactly I’ll have another day off. I’m all, “Holy crap, it’s going to be like three weeks before I can sleep again??!!”

BREATHE IN :: BREATH OUT :: BREATH IN :: BREATHE OUT ::

But the other day, someone in Internet-land found one of my old posts and it reminded me of how far I’ve come in the last year. Of how amazing my life is now.

If you’re too lazy to go read the whole thing here, here’s an excerpt:

“Yesterday I had a break down.

A full-blown, non-stop crying for five hours, turn my eyes into puffy pieces of fruit from the hysteria of it all, break down.

::

I was thinking that my life is so awful right now. and that I have student loans I’m pretty much just ignoring because there’s literally no money left to pay them each month. And how I have no toilet paper and I can’t afford to buy any more for at least a week. And how my ear is swishing. And how I hate that stupid commenter on my blog who goes by “fyi” and is too lame to even say his real name here but has no problem writing nasty judgmental comments whenever the mood strikes. and how I couldn’t understand why I seemed to be the only one at the table unable to make my finances work. and why wasn’t everyone around me just as p*ssed as I was that we don’t make enough money to live on?

::

I made it half-way to my car before I lost it.

I just started crying hysterically. I was gasping for air trying to hold it together, but I couldn’t stop. I felt so defeated. There were too many problems and no way to fix them. And how the h*ll could I possible make it to Friday with $2.30 in my bank account?

So I started calling people I knew could talk me out of this.

But none of them answered. And the hysterics just grew worse.

I ended up driving to a parking lot near a local school with the intention of calming myself down. Instead, I just worked myself up more.

Depressive thoughts have this way of repeating over and over and over and over and over until you get to a point where you’re so inside your own head that the real world is no longer what matters and all you can feel is defeat. And you know, in your brain, that it could be worse, because it could ALWAYS be worse. But in your soul, you can’t feel anything but the sadness.

Finally I got ahold of someone.”

Wow.

I mean. Wow.

I mean. I forgot.

I forgot how broke I really was. And how stressed I really was.

And just, wow.

I forgot that because we have to forget that . We have to keep waking up everyday, turning off our alarm clocks, brushing our teeth, and taking a little step away from the troubles in our past and toward the hope in our futures. We have to do it over, and over, and over.

And sometimes it feels like all those little steps are a waste. That they’re aren’t taking us anywhere and we’re just going to be stuck living the life we’re in right now, with all its worries and stress and crappy-ness.

Lucky for us, the little steps add up though. And I know mine are adding up right now.

Thank God.