oh um hi

Being a blogger (not a monetized blogger or gun for hire blogger) is being adrift on a silent sea.

But hey hello, I am very busy (and not in the superficial, half-lying, “oh gosh I’m just so active and popular”). It is hard to make time for this because I am not sure what it is I am making time for. If you are reading this, thank you for reading this!

To continue. Here are some things.

This year’s theme has “I’m not myself,” has it not? I think I’ve mentioned it plenty. I have been grappling with my new life, my new life with many fewer obligations and the fact that the only person that depended on me doesn’t anymore (his being dead and all). After the heartbreak of last year, the backbreaking will execution, and the planning/organizing of the family thing this summer, suddenly everything screeched to a halt. Family left, obligations settled, stepdad fully interred in the ground.

I’m starting to realize that I was seeking my old self, my pre-taking-care-of-John self, and that person is no longer. It’s new self and new chapter that I am struggling to find and define.

Over the fall, I crashed deeper into depression, it going from a little sullen (but relatively quiet) demon on my shoulder to a lead weightedness that made it hard to swim with. It’s getting better but I’ve had a few hard weeks. I thought I was hiding it well but there was an undeniable sadness about me that only a few people accurately identified as depression (and not stick-in-the-mud-ness, or boring-tiredness).

So I’ve made an attempt to be busier with new obligations, to be of service in various ways, to rededicate myself to my support group, and to start caring for myself again. Hard road! Hard hard road! So hard!

A lot of remarkable things have happened in a short amount of time, things that I planned on mentioning in breezy detail in this post (but no, this post had a downer mind of its own). One good thing that happened is that I’m not feeling blank horror at the holidays that we are hurtling toward, for the first time in … when? Maybe it’s because I don’t have enough time to think about all the shit I should be doing, if that makes sense, or maybe my support group work is working (despite my best efforts!), or maybe I’ve learned to make do with it all. I dunno.

Another good thing is that I still have this quiet, happy, clean home.

And another thing is that I feel valued for my knowledge and my talents.

And there are more things. But I’ll leave you to ponder this sort of sad, sort of hopeful, sort of grateful post. Happy Thanksgiving if I don’t check in before.