Tea Bags

This morning I was thinking about making a cup of hot tea when the silliest idea took shape in my head. I wanted decaf tea, that was the problem. I have a cabinet in which I store the boxes of tea. On my counter top is a tray with a little basket in which I throw a few bags at a time. I wanted decaf tea but if there were no decaf bags in the little basket on the tray, I didn't feel up to going into the cabinet ten feet away to take some out of the box. If you've never been depressed I imagine you're thinking this is silly, lazy or crazy. And it is. But if you have been depressed, you know it also makes perfect sense. My depression has been in remission for almost two years now and those simple tasks I used to be overwhelmed by don't generally seem so overwhelming any longer. I think of myself as having had rough edges all the way around my mind that are smoothed out. Then again, there are moments when the tea bags are too far away.

In case you're wondering what this means it isn't that I am depressed again. It's just that my mind and body still have habits that linger after the depression is long since gone. How long do habits take to form? Not sure, although I'm sure a little net surfing could find the answer. It isn't really that important for me to know just what length of time a person would need to be sick before tea bags became too much to bear. Not important because my illness was measured in years of not realizing that everyone wasn't felled by tea bags and their like.

The problem of the little basket in need of decaf bags, which indeed it was, was a thought process that took place in fleeting moments. I walked past the serving tray to the cabinet and pulled out a hand full of decaf bags, dropped them into the little basket and turned on the stove to heat up the kettle. It was all of a piece, I want tea-are there bags in the basket-if not I'll skip it-that's ridiculous, just refill the basket-of course I will. And-this is how I would've thought a few years ago.

Amazing to me, how habits remain when their original cause is long since gone. Despite the depression being treated I still have to break those old depressed habits. The behavior, it seems, doesn't necessarily follow behind the change of circumstance. I suddenly understand a little better where bitterness comes from. It's a habit that remains after the original offense is long since gone.

I'm sipping that cup of decaf tea right now. One moment at a time it seems, I am renewed.

Romans 12: 2And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.