Beginnings

Last Sunday, the new show, Fear the Walking Dead, started. Since we don't do cable, Dan and Livi went to visit some friends to watch the show. I stayed home. My anxiety started kicking in when we were watching The Walking Dead before, so I have to abstain. I was pretty excited though, about a nice quiet Sunday evening to myself. I read some, I painted some, I did some word puzzles, etc. This weekend, I'm feeling a bit more reflective so I decided it was time to write something.

As many of you know, Dan and I quit our jobs at the school bus lot and start new jobs tomorrow at an in-bound call center here in town. We've both worked there before, and enjoyed it, so we are eager for the change and especially the financial boost this will give our family. We are also starting up our new weekly schedule back to the gym three times a week and Dan's World of Warcraft nights. Livi has homework in third grade which adds a new dimension to the fun of cramming things into our evening. We went from t-shirt and jeans jobs to a business casual atmosphere. Dan only owns three polo shirts and I have scrounged enough things together to have five days of outfits. And we're switching from getting our last part time, weekly pay check this Friday to waiting almost a month for the full time checks to kick in. Just getting back to work from summer break, September rent won't be paid until our first full check, which will hopefully be before October rent is due. There are some changes and some stressors in my near future.

All of these changes and stressors are daunting. I don't want this good change to trigger a relapse in my depression. It scares me. The fear of the cycle of depression, that I know will be back around at some point, almost scares me into paralysis. I certainly don't need to create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
As I was pondering this, and checking facebook, I ran across a quote a friend shared.

"The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality." -Andrew Solomon

This was followed up by a short essay by Elizabeth Gilbert who likened depression to a stagnate state where as vitality is movement and change. That's exactly what I needed to hear tonight. I may be scared stiff of my depression. If you've even been in the blackness, you know what I mean that the fear of darkness taints your light. If I've just confused you, I pray you never need to understand. But what I've taken from this is to just do something. The best thing I can do to keep fighting my depression and not let fear sabotage these new beginnings, is to just keep going. Keep moving. Walk in faith that all this is for our good and taking us to a better place. I can't make the fear go away, but I can keep moving in spite of it. Today I can. There may come a day when I can't, but today I can. Today I will. Today I am blessed and I will milk my blessings for all they are worth!

Chicken

Yep, I'm a big chicken. I haven't posted anything lately because I didn't want to share with everyone that we have done terribly. July was a bad month for both our dieting and going to the gym.  We fell off the wagon pretty hard and now Dan and I both have to quit drinking soda again.  *sigh* I finally decided to share, because everybody else struggles, too.  Right?

But, on to better things.  We started back at the gym last week and we're eating at home, if not exactly what is best for us. We will be stricter on the diet once we are working again and there is some income coming in.

I have been in a remission, of sorts, from my depression this past week.  I don't know what happened, but the anxiety has quieted and I'm happy. I'll take it, but it worries me. I'm trying to enjoy the good and take advantage of the benefits of extra energy and motivation without worrying too much about how bad it will suck when this cycle is over again.

I have been wanting to paint. I haven't painted in years and for a creative person, that's just dumb. I haven't been writing, either. I even bought paint and I have a couple tiny canvas boards I can work on but I haven't started yet. This is proof that the anxiety is still present and I'm still being a chicken. I'm afraid to start a project for fear of messing it up. How can I mess up what I haven't started, you ask? Good question. I don't know but that's where my head is. I have lots of excuses to not paint, but no real reason. I'll let you know when I get something started. I'm hoping for tomorrow. Tonight we have the gym and I'm thinking up ideas but tomorrow is open.

I did, however, design myself some new stationery since my sis started a snail mail campaign. I've been writing her and I'm going to write my big sister too. Not sure if my other sis or the sis-in-law want in or not, but if anyone reading this wants in on it, let me know and I'll put you on my list. It felt nice to design something even if it wasn't a major project. Just one of those things I need to be doing to take care of me that I have not been doing.

Also on the topic of taking care of me, I'm going to a Red Tent meeting this week. Not sure what that will be like, but it sounds refreshing and empowering. I'll share more next week once I know how it goes. The same time my remission hit, several people contacted me for social stuff and it's been so good for me to be around friends again. I get to be a hermit when things are hard so I don't have to drag other people down. I'm doing better now. Here's praying that it lasts! And here's to establishing some good patterns in my up mood that will help carry me through when the rough is back.  :)