Friday, August 31, 2018

Climbing Out




"Depression can take the pleasure or enjoyment out of the things you love. A loss of interest or withdrawal from activities that you once looked forward to — sports, hobbies, or going out with friends — is yet another telltale sign of major depression." Mayo Clinic

       Life changes so fast and it's hard to keep up. I have always taken pride in my self-awareness and introspection. I think about what's wrong with me a lot. Probably not good. But lately as life has taken some crazy turns and has become so very busy that  I think I may have lost my grip on what's going on with me. I move along with the tide as it rolls in, breaks, and recoils. I follow it into the sea. This isn't me. It's who I used to be. I have always hated that person.


        I feel a longing in my stomach to create music. I feel the passion to place my life in pieces into words that become my narrative to the world. I want to do all of those great things that I used to do every day. Those things made me balanced and whole. But I don't. Instead, I work, I sleep, I eat, and in my free time, I sit. I want to do them. I just can't. 


        
What I do is normalize instead. I don't want that. I don't want to become a person that just goes on with it...this life, as if there isn't anything inside me that screams at me to fight. But that's where I am. That is what happens when you haven't recognized that you're depressed. I actually have to, after all these years of fighting it, read the description of depression to realize I'm in it. But knowing is only half the battle.

 "The rest is the mess you leave as you pass through." (a quote from the movie, The Heat.) 



         I have always loved this quote because it has inspired me to leave no damage to anyone as I come in and out of their lives. I really try not to. But lately, what I've noticed is this trend of negativity and anger in me. That was me before, not now. I gotta let things go man. I have to relax again and remember that God is in control and that the best thing I can do for me, my legacy, more importantly, my kids...is turn every damned 
negative moment into something different.  


       So here is my action plan and it's easy. 



Say only nice things about people, even if they have angered me.


Stop listening and reading things that feed into my negative nature. Unfollow sites that feed into my bubble.


If I see something positive in you, I'm gonna say it. I think that really helps others along in their day, and in their lives. I often forget that people are effected by things. Sometimes by my words. 


I have to stop thinking that the cards are stacked against me, and it's me against God somehow. It's ridiculous and a total waste of my time. We are all afflicted with something. Let's accept those things we cannot change and move forward with the things we can. 


I'm gonna really try to get back to a place where I focus on beauty and not the wilting. 



I'm gonna make myself pick up that guitar and write myself into everything I can compose. I'm gonna write it all down for you, my friends, to read. I'm gonna have faith again. I'm gonna be to others what I want people to be to me. That's the only way to live I think. 


Sing. 

Migrate. 





Thanks for reading...Z