The sun came out
and I shined too.
A curative dose,
waking me.
Lap after lap
of discovery.
Geese, trumpeter swan,
bluebirds, robins, chipmunks,
and a bunny.
Even a plant to water with
little buds thirsty.
Though knowing SAD strikes each year, still the tendency is to blame myself for not enough perkiness. The turn around when sunshine soaks in demonstrates once again, as it does each year, that less light depresses me in every way.
So, welcome spring, chase my blues away.
And so, the self-pity leaks out splashing down my face when allowed, though often as in the past, tears are suppressed causing a life robotically lived.
So let them flow, even if not knowing why. Stress causes tears, even happy stress. The way my body ejects parts of itself leaving the rest behind while rocketing off to Never-neverland? What’s left is wasteland, a vulnerable, weakened, self-doubting desert where I’m parched for warmth, love, and wholeness.
That happens too often and is the cause of great angst and self-pity. Yet there is magic, a friend far away consoling me. Knowing about my lack of self-esteem, and how self-blame batters me ragged over things having not a thing to do with me, eating me alive from the inside out.
A few words from her soothed, and supported my own quiet, wise, voice that couldn’t be heard over the critic’s which was banging away till the bruising caused me to curl insanely up into a fetal ball.
One kind word. One kind word. Thank you.
OK, so your mood dropped like a rock in a dry well. And first thoughts upon waking are with the critic whipping me even over decisions that needed to be made for my own well-being.
Good twisted to bad. The overall feeling of blah bleakness, well, you needn’t be victim to it. Though it happens every year it feels like the first time in its depth and scope.
You’ve cleared the critic off the shelf before, many times, and often many times throughout a day. So, do it more, as much as needed.
Just when needing to feel whole and in yourself, don’t abandon you. This is when the most kindness, compassion, and gentleness is needed; the reality of who you are, and all that has been accomplished.
The windows this morning are shut to 44-degree temperatures. Brr… and it is too quiet without birds, crickets, and the happy sounds of squirrels in the trees waking to collect more nuts to hide in the grass. Too quiet.
Resisting the TV or radio, just sit with it. Let it all be felt, what’s there being recognized so that when starting the day it is with wholeness not fakery. Challenges are real, so when taking them on kudos can be absorbed.
Pretending happiness when not? But finding it. Take yourself places, whether indoors or out, to those places of ‘happy.’ You can do it. It is different, as different as the seasons, but you can. The cold causes reflection about what thrills me, and if it’s lost, how to find it.
Making Magic
Tears fall without really knowing why. So let them. The feeling that fall brings isn’t comfortable, enjoyable, or easy. Coming every year doesn’t make it any easier to adjust to.
The best that can be said is that the depression isn’t debilitating, and mostly hidden from others. But hiding? That’s not authentic, at least not from myself. So accept the tears, the nostalgia. Welcome whatever comes.
Restless, not going to sleep, knocking myself out with yet another narcotic, but up three hours later. This is not right, not healthy. What the ‘F’ is going on is beyond me. Eventually some understanding comes concerning my pain, but none is forthcoming.
A friend suggested not to make too much of it. So, going with the flow, coffee is ground, dripped, then sipped on the back porch as usual with the cat at 2 AM.
Then a hot bath.
Maybe putting away the NARCS for awhile and switching back to low dose pot oil, something I vowed not to do, but a person needs sleep. Do I do nothing? Or just keep trying. I’ll take the later.
HER BEAUTY SHINES THROUGH- Kathy Hochul, candidate for New York Governor
Things don’t last, so too times in history. This too shall pass, this period of depressingly unable minded individuals that control the majority with evil.
How our country has moved toward fascism may not have started with the twice impeached ex-president, but he sure made the wrong doers come out of the woodwork.
Other eras had such evil, McCarthyism for one, and this one sure does. The inferior court of injustice, and white supremacists running after The Donald with drooling admiration, the Republican party turning into something evil based on lies not fact, so many not jailed who should be, the hate, guns, and the reversal of women’s rights going backwards decades to inflate the egos of those without self-esteem… so much out of my control.
This could trample me with defeat and depression, but today is my chance to do about all I can do, vote for my Democratic choice on the ticket for governor, a woman of courage whose beauty shines through. One with fight, vigor, passion, and a brain with a heart to match that works with facts for what is fair for all.
You bigots on the inferior court of INJUSTICE aren’t supposed to be putting things in place that swell your ego going against the majority of Americans because now you have power and use it for hate, prejudice, and control. Those robes aren’t for you to flow above us. But you use your power for evil. What was once justice for all, is now power over others so that your hate can injure and kill.
HATE MONGERS
Woman hater, sexually harassing Anita Hill in the workplace, a brilliant professional, yet he was confirmed anyway. Women must be punished because how dare she bring that crime to light, now you all pay for it.
This one almost managed to rape Christine Blasey Ford, an American academic. Her bathing suit under her clothing slowed him down enough for her to escape. In the attack she felt she might die from suffocation as he smothered her with his body, and she could have. He was confirmed anyway. How dare SHE come forward with his crime so he too must want to punish all woman… another woman hater cloaked in robes of disguise.
And the third, a religious zealot, using her religion to disguise her bigotry for anyone not of the religion of her choice, white, or rich.
She opens her arm to greet me, this goddess of morn, her cloak encircling her, the wavering, shimmering beams of fiery golds, reds, and oranges vibrating outward welcoming to the start of another day.
And the rounds in the meadow are mystical, magical, and fulfilling, each lap discovering more; the mist dissipating slowly from the creek’s waters, dew on the meadow grasses and flower blossoms, the fat little rabbit seen each morning in the path hopping away, and Bambi as he crosses the creek to other side, suddenly seeing me, staring, barking, then jumping away over the high foliage.
Another day yawns ahead without worries of job, children, or much of anything and shouldn’t that be a joy? Where did that joy go? Later Samuel pushes the pool cover over to dip in though the day wasn’t hot enough for me, yet his enjoyment pulled me out to risk it.
“The water’s warmer than the air,” he said, smiling.
Joining him, my mind in a whirl, not on the moment, my lamenting an oddity on a stellar summer day, he said, “Enjoy the moment!”
“Hey, that’s what I write on my blog every day!” I said.
“Well, read your own words,” he said, taking another plunge.
So, dipping in and out like a dolphin, shedding the negative dwellings with each dip, my body warmed in the bath-like water, sad memories unhooked floating up to the clouds… moments lived not wasted.
Mental illness? Who wants that? No one. It still has a bad rap, yet mine needs tending to. Not with chains, cells, straight- jackets, or hypodermics, but with care, love, and attention.
Anxiety, depression, and PTSD are in the medical textbook of psychiatric diagnoses. Sounds shitty. It is shitty. Worse though is feeling ashamed of being different, one more nail in the coffin from childhood after sexually abused, but feeling to blame because no one intervened to tell me otherwise.
The feelings that grew and solidified out of that are a challenge every day. My head may know all the words; not to blame, be your own best friend, blah, blah, blah. Feelings of badness, dirtiness, abnormality, (that list is extensive) grew cementing in my core as each year passed.
Reversing core beliefs, silencing the haranguing critic, learning to show myself kindness or beginning to even like myself? Challenging. Being burdened even more by feeling ashamed for what wasn’t my doing which has created needs different from many around me calls for special care and attention… not self scorn or denial of the facts. Or even glossing over them for another’s comfort. Learning how to love myself transforms each day into a more joyful one, but only with will, empathy, patience, acceptance, and perseverance.
I’ll get there, I’m getting there, trying to hear that softer voice that says it’s OK to take medication that helps. It’s not only OK, but imperative to slow down earlier in the day than most need to because (like last night) cleaning the house at 8PM activates an exhausted adrenal network tired from decades of overstimulation due to reacting as if every tiny thing was life threatening. So? Wide awake at the usual bedtime.
It’s OK you had to cancel out of camping with my son and family this upcoming week due to sleep issues worsening each year, yet longing to be there instead of their friends who kindly took our site when I had to face the fact of being unable to handle it. My younger brother dearly wants us to visit his new house on the lake and stay as long as we like. The prospect of following through, though we keep saying we will, are non-existent. We won’t, I can’t.
Or maybe needing medication once again last night was over some other tiny thing, something as simple as fretting over a comment on a fellow blogger’s site fearing I upset them– or horrors— make them not like me. Struggling with liking myself, it is about unbearable when others don’t, at least those I care about. I am learning not to be hurt by those I don’t. That’s a huge accomplishment.
It doesn’t take much to set off a system tripped onto high power since the age of eight after the first attack. My body is so drained any little thing sets it off.
Kindness, love, and acceptance. I’ll work on that…
They say old age isn’t for the faint of heart, or something like that. And some say it’s better than the alternative. Yet a simple splash of water left on the floor, meaning to wipe it up yet forgetting, almost caused Samuel to fall.
And that’s all it takes, a tiny thing to cause an accident which easily breaks older bones. It has happened to a few friends needing screws, pins, casts, and way too long in hospitals.
My carelessness could have done that, and the thought made a foul mood drop further. Adding to my funk was another spat with Samuel over who knows what? But he came out to the patio to join me. We let whatever quarrel it was go, enjoying the sun’s warmth, then decided it was the perfect day for a bike ride.
He seemed in a low mood too. But once on the trail depressing thoughts lifted. How could they not when the sun dappled path dotted with daisies were waving a happy hello? Wild roses out in full bloom greeted us with a heady scent intoxicatingly heavenly.
“That’s what we needed,” I said to Samuel, adding, “Nature and exercise cures everything.”
Making some kind of noise in agreement (man of few words), we travel on enjoying the day along with happier thoughts and feelings of accomplishment knowing we are doing beneficial things for our hearts, joints, and emotions.
As if a light switch turned me on from depression to joy, my mornings (and outlook) suddenly contain bliss. Part of it due to spring, the other part, blessed sleep, though negative thoughts like monsters still need taming in the night as they grow exponentially after dark.
This upheaval for the better is partly due to the coming of more light filled days, but also my own ability to persevere and be more disciplined.
No more sleep medication or going out to the other room. Stay in bed till the cows come home, or the rooster crows. There will still hard nights, count on it, but this past week has been the best of all winter.
The grass is greening. Even though the trees look bland, closer inspection reveals buds making a reddish hue on some, and a slight orange to others. My boots are sucked into the mud, the spatters wetting my pants cuffs as birds sing all around carrying their melodies right to my core.
After walking rounds in the meadow, resting by the creek brings such fulfillment as the sun finally rose to warm my cheeks with a kiss.
Oh spring!
Patricia J Grace 