Blogging is a bizarre phenomenon. We carve out a little niche in cyberspace and bare our souls in the hope that a few friends and family will use it to keep up with us. I refer to my blog entries as editorial catharsis; blowing off steam while sharing a little about what's going on in my life. I'm catharted (not a word, I know) out. I'm weary of being affected. So I think I might just bare my soul and leave the bitching to the professionals. Okay, well maybe a little bitching...

The past few weeks have been weird, to say the least.

Downside: I am observing Great Lent, although not in the strictest degree, and it involves sacrificing the foods that comfort me.

Upside: The Young's are becoming Orthodox (Heather's blog deals with that journey and she treats it with much more grace and depth than I).

Downside: I found out that none of the three grad schools I applied to are interested in me.

Upside: I get to spend another year in Oregon.

Downside: A stellar opportunity to catalogue Howard University's Ethiopian Manuscript collection in May fell through and we are not going to be able to go.

Upside: I have been working frequently on the Ethiopian Manuscript Imaging Project with a former professor and it is really stretching me academically.

I swing back and forth between moments of excitement and depression. I tell people that things are going well but it's not really true. My only goal right now is to finish my schooling and get set in a teaching career. To stall out after an arduous five years of school is demoralizing. I was given the impression by professors, friends and colleagues that I am a natural for an academic career, but the doors that were supposed to open are not budging. I wonder if I am a "natural" because I'm not great at anything else. I don't like to wallow in pity but I'm hovering and I want to be moving forward.

Don't worry, I still love my family and I know that being a good husband and father is my primary vocation. But I can't help but feel dejected. To play down my depression by talking about how wonderful my family is only diminishes their value to me and they become little more than an equivocation of the fact that I am depressed and not comfortable telling people about it.

All said, I am far from rock bottom. And hey, I have a long Oregon Spring to enjoy. Isn't Spring supposed to be a time of renewal and growth?

PAX

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