DUMPSTER

It’s the day after the night before and the sun is almost blazing. 70 outside and inviting enough to try to jump in a swimming pool. They are all concrete this early however. I have opened up the front and back windows in the house and fresh air is flowing though like water transiting Grand Coulee.



As I age gracefully I find that I have depression. I’ve known it for three or four years. Especially during the winter. Seasonal Affective Disorder. I picture it and describe it to others as: a gray day in winter, feel like crying, no energy, would rather spend the day in bed. And I take a little 20mg pill of something to make it go away. I am now finding out, the past two years, that it’s getting more pervasive the older I get and wears a lot more than that gray winter face. I’ve been bedeviled by trying to discipline myself to control anger, overeating, low energy. And I’d figured out that I’ve had a lamentable lack of self discipline in those areas. Until two weeks ago when a good friend who deals with depression on an almost daily basis told me to flip it around and think outside the box. That possibly depression has crept into the neurons and brain cells like groundwater seeping through limestone strata. That maybe the cause ultimately is depression and not lack of discipline. I am discovering that when I am ‘down’ or at least not centered, I like to eat more because it feels good; I am often angry mostly at things that don’t usually even make me turn a hair, and that if I smoked less I would have more energy. Now that I am thinking in a new way, so much seems to make sense. I have been talking to people with depression, those who are actively trying to do something about it, and I’m finding that it has many different faces than the classic one I was familiar with. I am finding out that I have much to learn and that life may be better for that.

I have a plan: Talk to the Doctor about increasing the little pills or another medication; keep talking to people who are actively working to keep their equilibrium with depression; start attending a discussion group locally for people with depression, I may well learn many things; Don’t make consequential decisions or think heavily on the nature of things when I am ‘down.’ That way leads to train wrecks.

So, today is nice. I feel really good. Who knows what tomorrow may bring. I will do the stuff and see what happens. Ta!