it's not the end, nor the beginning. it's just the going on...
you know why i like the dark seasons (autumn & winter)? because they give me permission to be a depressive. at least that is what i've exemplified for myself as a cry of victory over the majority of my lifetime. its more okay to be depressed during these months than it is when the sun is constantly shining.
i'm not going to say any of what's on my mind or in my heart properly or succinctly enough in this entry because i'm very out of practice with writing. i'm out of practice with communicating outwardly and publicly. i have been living in secrecy for a very long time now and mete out what i want to be known in teaspoon fulls, but not to anyone in particular. i am becoming obscure and reclusive. it's been roughly a year since i left facebook and my goal of making stronger, real seeming relationships with people not using that platform of communication has floundered. the majority of the members of the modern world that have been swept up into the easiness of electronic communications and the addictive utensils like facebook and text messaging do not want to communicate in old school ways anymore. i've written letters to people, but get email replies, weeks or months later. "Oh, that was unique of you to write a letter on paper and use the mail system to post it. When are you coming back to facebook." No mentions of what I actually spoke about in the letter. Same with phone calls. No one seems to answer their phones anymore. Leave a voice message. Maybe they'll listen to it. But we all have voice translators that transcribe our voices into text. You never need to hear the emotional tone in the voice of another human being again. I'm just as guilty of this too though, not answering the phone but I blame it on my depression.
back to topic, our first real storm of the winter blew in last night (and it dumped a lot of rain - which was beautiful to listen to). yesterday i didn't really move out of bed till around 2pm and i was so fearful that if i DID NOT get out of bed and out of the house, that if i just laid there like my depressive instincts were dragging me down to do (i would have been entirely satisfied to not eat all day, slip in and out of sleep, and watch movies endlessly), I would have opened the door for a HUGE depression to abscond with my whole life. so much has been brewing up for a depression to settle in already that the efforts and effects of the cold, wet, and gloom would be the icing on my cake to finish me off. Not give me permission to enter a world of depression - because it is always a matter of choice, it's just sometimes you make a lot of poor decisions along the way that build up a depression-fortress around you. that's what's been happening with me. i could not let the gates close. i've been locked inside too many times in past years and i have too much to want to stay alive for now.
so i decided yesterday that i had to go outside and interact with nature. fortunately i was able to get support from my best friend who confirmed that it was a good idea to do it. if i had not been able to get that little boost of support from her i probably would not have had enough strength or courage of my own to go for it.
i just went for a two hour hike in the woods and hills not too far from where i live. thankfully there is such an area so close to my home. sadly, i do not take advantage of going out there often enough. i just get into habits and bad routines, get stuck in them. the summer heat was what kept me from going on hikes, from building a routine up even though i did go out several times during the summer when there were cool days. perhaps now i'll start to build up a new routine.
i was weak yesterday. my legs, knees, back and frighteningly my heart all gave me trouble. the trail i took was a steep uphill climb and after about 15 minutes of steady walking i started to feel strange tinglings and numbness in my hands, my chest tightened up, my breath became more shallow than normal from that sort of exertion... the thoughts passed through my mind that i could have a heart attack. that maybe i even was. and you know how a whole scene flashes through you mind. i tried to see if i could get a signal on my phone to call someone. but there was no service exactly where i was on the trail. my mom didn't know where i was. i had only told her i was going to the library. my best friend knew the general area i was going to but again, no way to reach her either. and i saw no other people this far up on the trail. the pain persisted, i could not catch my breath and the vision developed of seeing myself needing to lay down. i looked for a soft spot in the leaves and dry grass where i could lay down like an old bear that knew it was going to die, where i could curl up and let the pain overwhelm me. and in that moment of standing there considering whether i should lay down i looked to the other side of the path and found a cement drainage ditch that i could sit upright upon. i chose to go there instead. drank some water and everything started to become more calm. a hiker appeared then and asked if i was okay. he saw me fiddling with my phone, i was still wondering why there was no. he was close to my age, probably younger even though he was more gray-haired. he had been hiking out here regularly and was kind. but i was not past the panic stage and he did not pause long enough to see that i was not totally fine.
I became fine enough though to carry on. Didn't go any higher into the hills but didn't speedily retreat to my car either. Just stayed in this one grove of trees where i took a couple dozen photographs with my camera's phone. Which was very relaxing and therapeutic. I can be differently happy taking photographs of nature like that than i am taking photographs with models. It's more meditative. Lonely, which i can deal with too, but if i can keep a balance of still doing the two types in my life, I'll feel healthier. (Something unfortunate happened later last night. I needed to reset my phone and LOST over 500 photographs from my phone's storage. Everything I've shot with it over the past 3 or 4 months. I spent 2 hrs trying to backup all that data, thought I did - but my weak brain missed some step in the procedure. and none of it had been backed up anywhere - except for what had been posted to Instagram. THAT's enough to send someone into depression. i am so used to depression or so constantly on the verge of depression that something like this is easy for me to accept. it's like, "how can things get any worse?" kinda philosophy.
OKAY, so the other big realization that came up for me yesterday was this. No one else is responsible for how i feel. My feelings are my own and no one causes me to feel the way that I feel. It's all the results of how I interpret events with my mind. My feelings are MINE. I create them with my thoughts. Most of which are rooted in selfishness. This was a breakthrough realization because my good, best friend and I have been feeling some strain recently and I've been fearing that she thinks she's the blame for any unhappiness that I'm suffering. Thing is, that i was indeed feeding some energy into that theory. It was self pity and blame and i cast the cause of it upon her because i could not get her to do the things i want her to do or be for me what i want her to be. But once I had this breakthrough realization on the hike, the exercise, the air, the sunlight, my depression was broken off, the shell of it fell away and i saw that what i created for myself to think that way was childish and immature AND FALSE. that it weakened both of us. it clouded up the pathways for communication and freedom between us and i had to not contribute any more deluded selfish energy to it again. And i stopped!
okay, that's kinda it for now. would write another chapter about other stuff coming up. need to. maybe in the next day or so. i'm sitting outside of Starbucks now because they closed 40 minutes ago and it's 56 degrees here. gonna fly, bye!!
i'm not going to say any of what's on my mind or in my heart properly or succinctly enough in this entry because i'm very out of practice with writing. i'm out of practice with communicating outwardly and publicly. i have been living in secrecy for a very long time now and mete out what i want to be known in teaspoon fulls, but not to anyone in particular. i am becoming obscure and reclusive. it's been roughly a year since i left facebook and my goal of making stronger, real seeming relationships with people not using that platform of communication has floundered. the majority of the members of the modern world that have been swept up into the easiness of electronic communications and the addictive utensils like facebook and text messaging do not want to communicate in old school ways anymore. i've written letters to people, but get email replies, weeks or months later. "Oh, that was unique of you to write a letter on paper and use the mail system to post it. When are you coming back to facebook." No mentions of what I actually spoke about in the letter. Same with phone calls. No one seems to answer their phones anymore. Leave a voice message. Maybe they'll listen to it. But we all have voice translators that transcribe our voices into text. You never need to hear the emotional tone in the voice of another human being again. I'm just as guilty of this too though, not answering the phone but I blame it on my depression.
back to topic, our first real storm of the winter blew in last night (and it dumped a lot of rain - which was beautiful to listen to). yesterday i didn't really move out of bed till around 2pm and i was so fearful that if i DID NOT get out of bed and out of the house, that if i just laid there like my depressive instincts were dragging me down to do (i would have been entirely satisfied to not eat all day, slip in and out of sleep, and watch movies endlessly), I would have opened the door for a HUGE depression to abscond with my whole life. so much has been brewing up for a depression to settle in already that the efforts and effects of the cold, wet, and gloom would be the icing on my cake to finish me off. Not give me permission to enter a world of depression - because it is always a matter of choice, it's just sometimes you make a lot of poor decisions along the way that build up a depression-fortress around you. that's what's been happening with me. i could not let the gates close. i've been locked inside too many times in past years and i have too much to want to stay alive for now.
so i decided yesterday that i had to go outside and interact with nature. fortunately i was able to get support from my best friend who confirmed that it was a good idea to do it. if i had not been able to get that little boost of support from her i probably would not have had enough strength or courage of my own to go for it.
i just went for a two hour hike in the woods and hills not too far from where i live. thankfully there is such an area so close to my home. sadly, i do not take advantage of going out there often enough. i just get into habits and bad routines, get stuck in them. the summer heat was what kept me from going on hikes, from building a routine up even though i did go out several times during the summer when there were cool days. perhaps now i'll start to build up a new routine.
i was weak yesterday. my legs, knees, back and frighteningly my heart all gave me trouble. the trail i took was a steep uphill climb and after about 15 minutes of steady walking i started to feel strange tinglings and numbness in my hands, my chest tightened up, my breath became more shallow than normal from that sort of exertion... the thoughts passed through my mind that i could have a heart attack. that maybe i even was. and you know how a whole scene flashes through you mind. i tried to see if i could get a signal on my phone to call someone. but there was no service exactly where i was on the trail. my mom didn't know where i was. i had only told her i was going to the library. my best friend knew the general area i was going to but again, no way to reach her either. and i saw no other people this far up on the trail. the pain persisted, i could not catch my breath and the vision developed of seeing myself needing to lay down. i looked for a soft spot in the leaves and dry grass where i could lay down like an old bear that knew it was going to die, where i could curl up and let the pain overwhelm me. and in that moment of standing there considering whether i should lay down i looked to the other side of the path and found a cement drainage ditch that i could sit upright upon. i chose to go there instead. drank some water and everything started to become more calm. a hiker appeared then and asked if i was okay. he saw me fiddling with my phone, i was still wondering why there was no. he was close to my age, probably younger even though he was more gray-haired. he had been hiking out here regularly and was kind. but i was not past the panic stage and he did not pause long enough to see that i was not totally fine.
I became fine enough though to carry on. Didn't go any higher into the hills but didn't speedily retreat to my car either. Just stayed in this one grove of trees where i took a couple dozen photographs with my camera's phone. Which was very relaxing and therapeutic. I can be differently happy taking photographs of nature like that than i am taking photographs with models. It's more meditative. Lonely, which i can deal with too, but if i can keep a balance of still doing the two types in my life, I'll feel healthier. (Something unfortunate happened later last night. I needed to reset my phone and LOST over 500 photographs from my phone's storage. Everything I've shot with it over the past 3 or 4 months. I spent 2 hrs trying to backup all that data, thought I did - but my weak brain missed some step in the procedure. and none of it had been backed up anywhere - except for what had been posted to Instagram. THAT's enough to send someone into depression. i am so used to depression or so constantly on the verge of depression that something like this is easy for me to accept. it's like, "how can things get any worse?" kinda philosophy.
OKAY, so the other big realization that came up for me yesterday was this. No one else is responsible for how i feel. My feelings are my own and no one causes me to feel the way that I feel. It's all the results of how I interpret events with my mind. My feelings are MINE. I create them with my thoughts. Most of which are rooted in selfishness. This was a breakthrough realization because my good, best friend and I have been feeling some strain recently and I've been fearing that she thinks she's the blame for any unhappiness that I'm suffering. Thing is, that i was indeed feeding some energy into that theory. It was self pity and blame and i cast the cause of it upon her because i could not get her to do the things i want her to do or be for me what i want her to be. But once I had this breakthrough realization on the hike, the exercise, the air, the sunlight, my depression was broken off, the shell of it fell away and i saw that what i created for myself to think that way was childish and immature AND FALSE. that it weakened both of us. it clouded up the pathways for communication and freedom between us and i had to not contribute any more deluded selfish energy to it again. And i stopped!
okay, that's kinda it for now. would write another chapter about other stuff coming up. need to. maybe in the next day or so. i'm sitting outside of Starbucks now because they closed 40 minutes ago and it's 56 degrees here. gonna fly, bye!!
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