Depression always seems to have me in its clutches before I've recognized that it's nipping at my heels.
Depression... It's like a ninja. If you see it, it's too late.
Lately I've been exhausted. Irrationally physically tired. Just foggy and blurry in the head.
No place feels better than my bed.
I've been disinterested... no TV shows are entertaining, no books seem appealing (even though I have a stack of my favorites next to my bed), no study calls my name, no quest or project seem engaging (except my book, which I pursue with a rote doggedness that borders the relentless rather than the joyful).
At the end of every day, at the end of every week, I feel a sense of dread that I have to repeat the same moves again in just one sleep. Just one interrupted sleep, shattered every morning by an angry cry from a tiny person who has no mercy with my moods.
Oh I shake it off. Diligently. I shake it all off and square my shoulders and lean down and wipe that food off the floor one more time. But there's an extra layer of difficulty to the act... An extra layer of will power that must be applied to push aside the haze of weariness.
It strikes me that these are the mumblings of a language I've heard before... the language of depression. But I'm ok. I'm ok. I'm fine. Fiiiiine. Really. I feel fine. Except for all that. And when is it time to look at all of that and say, "I'm less fine than I could be."
If you're smelling smoke, there's likely fire coming down the valley, right?
But even if there is... what can I do about it?
The tired. The sad. The bored. The lack of joy. The lack of care. They lack of umph. They aren't things I choose or practice. I'd say I'm actively choosing and practicing exactly the opposite. But it's like running through a pond in rubber overalls... the straining forward for goodness is being sucked at by a weightiness that's almost beyond you... and the more you strain for the goodness, the more you feel the pull of the weight... but if you give into the weight... you sink. And straining for goodness is so normal that you forget to even stop and ask, "Why is it hard? Shouldn't this be easier in the first place?"
If you can't work it away and you can't rest it away... what do you do?
I don't know.
When Work and Rest fail me, I often go for Change.
I rearrange the furniture. I try a new hair cut. I reorganize the cabinets.
But to do those things, you need to overcome apathy.
And right now, right at this moment in time, apathy is winning.
I'm tired.
When Work and Rest and Change fail me... am I depressed?
Tomorrow is Saturday. My husband is working the night shift. Again. I'll be alone for dinner and bath and bedtime stories and the witching hour with the baby. And I'll be tired. I can't even think about it. I can't...
And right now that's all I have. Not work. Not rest. Not change. Right now those tools are failing me. Right now all I have is the raw determination not to flounder. Not to think about the things that pull me down. Not to give up. Not to blink and loose sight of whatever flickering hope each new day holds. And the knowledge that if I keep my eyes keenly turned away from the darkness, I can find it. The light.
That's what I have right now. That's what I do. Hope.
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