DEPRESSION

MEETING THE DAY

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I am sitting here, coffee in hand, watching for the glow of the impending dawn. I am up for no reason other than I woke up. Every day at 5:00 plus or minus fifteen minutes without setting an alarm. “Bright eyed and bushy tailed” or as a coaching friend used to yell to his charges “Another day in which to excel.” I don’t know about excelling, all I have to do is finish this story, run a bit, cut the backyard and weed in the garden in order to have a successful day. There are other things I need to do but its Friday. Who starts new projects on a Friday? Things have certainly changed since I have retired.

Linda and I greet the day differently. I am up and ready to go. “Hit the decks a running boys!” She on the other hand is “sorta” awake and pissed off about it. Linda Gail likes to ease into the day…over an extended period. “Bring me my coffee and then shut up! Do not talk to me!” Thirty minutes later I check on her…with another cup of coffee to replace the one now cold on her bed side table. Thirty minutes later, she is ready to talk about everything she has been thinking about the last hour. Since our retirement I have decided to use her “ease into the day time” as my exercise time. As you might surmise, I am ready to go to bed about the time Linda Gail is hitting her second wind and fighting sleep like the child that she is. Sometimes I don’t understand how we have survived each other.

The way we meet the day really wasn’t as big an issue when we both worked…well it was when we decided to do our exercise walk…together…before we went to work…in the dark…while she was pissed off. I got up at four-thirty IN THE AM! I would then wake Linda at five-thirty, bring her coffee and a banana and take off for a thirty-minute run with a plan to meet her for a thirty-minute walk at six. That was the plan. Usually I would continue to walk or jog back and forth over the short Airline Road until she showed up…fifteen to thirty minutes late, coffee in hand…and I did not dare make a comment. The one time I commented did not go well. On those mornings she showed up early I knew I better be quiet and just walk. Actually it didn’t matter, any day I should just be quiet and walk until she began to initiate the conversation. “Why are we whispering? Are we afraid we might wake up the bears?”

Linda Gail and I don’t exactly walk for the same reasons. She walks totally for her head to battle depression…with a cup of coffee in her hand and with frequent stops to point out plants, animals or reptiles. In other words, a stroll to “elevate her mind.” I do it for my head too but I also walk for exercise so I have to do double walks. My fitness walks and then her stroll in the park walk. Some mornings I would simply sprint, ha ha, okay, jog away from her and then jog back.

We haven’t been walking together lately. Linda Gail hurt herself playing around on an elliptical and had a flare up of…well…we are not sure. It may just be our age…not on your life…maybe. I’ve missed our walks…not at six IN THE AM, but I have missed them. We finally ventured out to the lake at Look Up Lodge. A nice slow, reasonably flat surface stroll. It proved what I knew, “I have missed our walks.” I have also missed our talks although I did ask if I had her permission to chatter…old habits I guess. Comfortable old habits.

More nonfiction by Don Miller is available at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON?

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WITH CREDIT TO BLAIR (THE SHAMEFUL SHEEP)

Blair’s blog post struck a nerve. No, not really a nerve, it was just worrisome…and I agreed with her blog post. If you like blogs, you should look her up. I don’t think it was her intention, but her post made me think about God as I walked and ran early this Sunday morning. I talk to God a lot when I run but usually it is to request something like, “Please God help me get up this hill” or “Oh God, ANOTHER HUNDRED YARDS?” The conversation this morning was not “that kind” of conversation and I continued to carry the heavy, mental conversation I was having with myself and God into church and I don’t really remember what my preacher talked about. Sorry but at least I didn’t fall asleep, and it was “sorta” a spiritual conversation.

It was Blair’s opening remarks that got me to thinking, and I quote her, “You know when you’re down on your luck, going through a terrible time, and all you want to do is drown yourself in a vat of melted chocolate? Then, you lean on your loved one for support and they say, ‘don’t worry, everything happens for a reason.’ Really? Am I the only one who gets stabby over this saying? My dog got run over for a reason? How comforting.” Exactly what does “stabby” mean? Oh, slang for angry.

I don’t think I’ve ever used the word stabby or used “Everything happens for a reason,” but it got me to thinking anyway. First, I thought about Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 or if you are not familiar with the scripture, the old Byrd’s song “Turn, Turn, Turn.” Not familiar with either? You have enough information to Google it. “Seek and ye shall find” and I would probably YouTube the song. For the Cliff Note people, the verse explains there is a time for everything and by my own logic, a reason for everything that happens. It was after my “logic” that things went a bit contrary.

During my short run and walk my thinking went “right” off the tracks. I should have been happy just to be running again but you see, twenty-five years ago I lost my college ring. I’ll let that sink in. Twenty-five years ago, I lost my college ring. “Everything happens for a reason?” What possible plan could God have for my college ring? Why did losing my ring happen for a reason? To teach me a lesson about taking better care of my possessions? I WAS being careful. I was on my way out to do yard work and did not want to ding the ring on something and damage it or worse, hang the ring, still on my finger, ala Cecil Upshaw.

Gee whiz I really feel old explaining who Cecil Upshaw was. Cecil was a major league pitcher who, on a bet, jumped up to touch an awning, hung his ring and tore the ligaments in his finger. He was never an effective pitcher again. So, I WAS being careful. I might still have a major league career. I reached to put the ring on a shelf and “clumsily” dropped it causing the ring to bounce and disappear down a hole on our old back porch. I looked, and I looked, and I looked. Even when we tore down the kitchen and back porch to renovate the old farmhouse, I looked in every nook and cranny and in every brick or cement block that was carried out. No ring. Every time I am under the house I pause and ask God where the ring might be hiding. Silence. I am sure a long dead pack rat took it to her nest to help keep the kiddies captivated.

A lesson on clumsiness? And God said, “YOU MUST BE LESS CLUMSY, I AM GOING TO TEACH YOU A LESSON!” I can hear the thunder rumbling behind his comment now. God, you made me in YOUR image. How many times have you knocked over a glass or tripped over your own shadow? I know, NEVER, but IT IS a valid question. If everything happens for a reason, what was the reason? Other than pissing me off it doesn’t seem to have accomplished anything, but EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON!

I know many of you wonder if I am flirting with a lightning strike. I don’t think so because my God is the loving God of the New Testament and knows my heart. He knows I AM NOT committing blasphemy. He is also a humorous God. God made me which is really a knee slapper if you think about it. I have conversations like this with God all the time. On a bad allergy day not long ago, I asked him why he decided to put my nose upside down over my mouth allowing it to drain into my mustache. Then it started to rain, and I knew. Evolution? I think not AND THERE ARE MUCH WORSE PLACES MY NOSE COULD BE!

It’s now late in the evening and I have had this conversation going on all day. God has provided no divine clarification, but it could be my liquid libation. WAIT! He has. 1st. Corinthians 4:5 says, “Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God.” Well, I don’t know about the motives in men’s hearts or the praise, but I can tell you the first question I’m going to ask him. Finis.

Blair The Shameful Sheep can be read at https://bhharned.wordpress.com/

Don’t forget to visit my author page at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

LUNATIC?

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I woke up crazy one morning. I’m sure it just wasn’t ONE MORNING. My lunacy was so gradual I didn’t notice it…until I did. Sadness and impending doom permeated my very being. I wanted to stay in bed, keeping the blinds drawn, and wait until the next morning when it would be time to stay in bed again. Saying I was depressed didn’t quite cover it. Saying I was depressed was like referring to the Grand Canyon as a big hole. I hated myself…no I loathed myself and no one knew…no one could know. No one could know because if they found out they would also know I was a lunatic.

Why am I depressed? Late twenties, healthy, married, great job…WHY WAS I DEPRESSED? Why was I crazy? I’m depressed because I hate my marriage…or do I hate my marriage because I am depressed. “A conundrum wrapped in an enigma?” Oh God I have to go to work. I like people but I hate to be around them. “I love my job.” “I HATE MY JOB!” “I VANT to be alone.” I just want to go to sleep…forever. “You have to get up and stand in front of your students and not let on how crazy you are!” “TEACH THEM YOUNGINS!” “But I’m so tired!” Get through today and tomorrow will be better…but it wasn’t. I…just…want…to…break…something.

What am I going to do? “What do I have to be depressed over?” Nothing. “Why?” I grew to hate THAT word like fingernails on a chalkboard. “I DON’T KNOW WHY I JUST AM!” “QUIT ASKING ME!” “I must be ‘bananas,’ ‘bonkers,’ or ‘cracked.’ I tried to make light of it…until one night I found myself having a conversation with myself while staring down the barrel of a gun. A small gun, a revolver and five lead tipped bullets stared back at me. I would not need five, one would end the pain AND THE SORROW. It would be so easy…just pull back the hammer…put the muzzle to your temple and…” WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?” I have to get help…but who can help and no one can know I am crazy.

It has been nearly forty years since that night. Obviously I chose help rather than pulling the trigger on that little twenty-two. I went to my doctor and to together we figured out that I was “clinically depressed.” A chemical imbalance that was treated by drugs and therapy. I’m no longer on drugs but I still battle it. Exercise helps as does knowing what it is but I still battle it. “KNOW YOUR ENEMY!” Mental illnesses are diseases just like the common cold, arthritis or cancer. Some are just as incurable and some are genetic. I know my grandmother suffered from it although she would simply say, “She was just blue.” I will never be cured and sometimes that thought “makes me blue.”

There is still a stigma about mental illness. I still cringe when I here myself say, “You are mentally ill.” A hundred years before I would have just gone crazy. How we throw that word around, not thinking about what it may mean to the people we describe. If I had failed to successfully commit suicide, I might have ended up in the asylum with the rest of the “lunatics.” That’s what we did before reform…but I still worry that I am crazy…in a bad way…and that I should be put away.

I woke up depressed this morning. It happens that way. There is no reason, I just feel sorrow for no reason. I want to crawl back into a hole and pull the dirt in behind me. I can’t concentrate. When I walk I can’t find “my happy place” and I feel so tired I am unsure I can put one foot in front of the other. Despite recent injuries, I run. Not fast, not hard, just a minute of physical pain followed by a minute of worrying about physical pain. Repeat…ten times. I am forced to concentrate…on something other than my depression…my lunacy.

It is the afternoon now. I have had a full and productive day despite my affliction. I am better. Why am I better? I don’t know. I just am. If I awaken depressed tomorrow I will again ask that most hated three letter question, “Why?” There is no answer and there is no cure. I know depression will come again, if not tomorrow, next week or next month. I feel it lurking just out of sight. I know my depression is still nearby just as I know I will continue to fight a battle that I can never quite win…maybe that is winning.

If you enjoyed this, Don Miller has also written three books which may be purchased or downloaded at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM