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!