Category Archives: Happy Things

Delving into the Psyche, Depression/Anxiety, Happy Things, Spirituality, The Zebra

Spring

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The kids and I have been on Spring Break and it has been so, so good.

Last week, I struggled under a wet blanket, made of wool and smelling of old damp things. Last week I had a flare up of one of my illnesses: this time it was depression. It was triggered by a small (not really) thing and I wound up spending 36 hours crying and trying not to cry at everything and nothing. Things got a little better after that, but I was still wearing shoes of cement and walking through boggy mindfields. It was a struggle to make it to the end of the week with some semblance of functioning, but the knowledge that spring break was on the horizon kept me going.

Things are scant now, we are in the winter of our life’s path and the seasons leading up to this winter were not exactly fecund so our stores were already low: money, goods… mental energy to handle the stressors that continually arise.

We have never been wealthy; we have always been low-income, but we managed to make ends meet and we managed to enjoy small extravagances through careful planning and resourcefulness. My first divorced Mother’s Day, I had only enough gas to get us to Balboa Park where we took a free tour and listened to a free concert and it is one of my favorite memories. But those days I had not yet been beaten down by all the various Systems that are antagonistic towards the poor or the disabled. It is harder these days to find energy to be resourceful like I used to be.

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But this week has been such a blessing. Slowly, I have begun feeling like the old Me again. The kids and I have gone on a little hike to enjoy the superbloom of wildflowers, we visited the Wild Animal Park to see butterflies and take a tram ride, we visited my university for GradFest and my children looked on so proudly while I had my graduate photo taken. We have been silly together and we have navigated difficulties together. I have allowed myself plenty of rest and forgiven myself for not doing as much work as I had hoped. We have watched movies and played games. It has been the best week we’ve all had in a long, long time. We all feel happy.

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I have felt myself being knitted back together.

I didn’t even realize I had come apart.

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In my chest, in a place behind my stomach and nestled just below my heart: this is the place where I am held together by the threads of family and love and beauty and wholeness. Over time, through traumas and betrayals, my threads have been snipped or have come loose. It’s not something you notice right away; it happens so slowly like being boiled alive. And then you are walking around, jostling the parts of your soul until they are bruised. You walk more carefully like you are stepping on a floor of glass and too much movement will send you crashing through into the void below, but still you never notice.

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Until you begin being knit back together.

It is a physical sensation. A tightness, but not a threatening squeeze like anxiety. Rather, it is a good tightness, like being swaddled, or cuddled. But more than that, really. It is a healing sensation. I am becoming whole again.

This is not the end, I know. Life is still very hard, things are still tenuous. I will likely come undone a thousand times before I find true and complete stability (if such a thing exists – if such a thing will exist in the future). But right now, I am here in this moment giving thanks.

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Ostara (which my family and I did not celebrate because of my flare) is a holiday marking Springtime, fecundity, growth. It is an equinox which is all about balance. In the context of the journey of the Sun, it is a time in between rebirth and death, in between the darkness of winter and the light of summer. If my graduation happening at Yule was appropriate, then so is this. My spring is returning. It may return with winter storms, with mucky flares of swamp walking, but the darkness is already halfway gone and I am facing the return of the Sun.

Onwards!

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Happy Things, This is a Woman

Finding Happy 2013

Afternoon under the pines. #findinghappy2013 Adjusted in #snapseed.

A couple of years ago, when I foresaw a difficult year ahead, I decided to set myself up with a system to help keep me focused on the Happy when I knew the Sad would likely visit much of the year (and yet, how I underestimated the Sad of 2011!). I decided to take a photo each day of one thing, person, or moment that brought me some Happy. I kept them all saved in a set on Flickr so I could look through them whenever I needed a lift. And it did help. It was a daily moment to focus on the positive. It was a daily meditation or a prayer that I could do, even when my head was too foggy for meditation or prayer.

And since right now I’m facing some difficult times again, I thought it might be nice to revisit that idea of focusing on at least one Happy each day. If you’re also in need of some Happy, I hope you’ll join me. As we head back into the darker time of year (well, for those in the same hemisphere as I am, that is), and towards the stress of the holidays I know Happy may be harder to find for some. Happiness in numbers, I always say! (I don’t always say that. I never say that. It’s maybe kinda true, though.)

Just tag your Instagram photos this autumn with #findinghappy2013 and if you like, you can join the Flickr group as well. Let’s find Happy together!

(God. That’s the cheesiest ending to a blog post EVER.)

Depression/Anxiety, Happy Things, I Own a Home. WTF?, This is a Woman

Happy Things: Round 2

Happy Thing: Heart-Shaped Coffee

Oh look! It’s me not blogging!

I hate being a broken record. When I have to work my way through something, I get sick and tired of hearing myself use the same words to describe it over and over again. I suppose that using certain words is a normal part of psychological growth and healing, but holy crap I wish I would just shut up.

And so here I am not blogging about where I’m at in my life. Because it’s fucking boring. Blah blah blah depression. Blah blah blah loneliness. Blah blah blah anxiety. Because I don’t want my blog to be everything I hate about me, and I don’t want it to be a broken record.

I’m also having a hard time talking about it because I’m supposed to be happy right now. I bought a home and it’s lovely (and it is) and that’s exciting (and it is) and this is a time full of new beginnings which are supposed to be happy things (and they are). I feel like so many people are so excited about this for me that I’d be letting them down if I feel anything different.

And to complicate things, I actually do feel all the things I’m “supposed” to be feeling, but I’m also feeling all those key words I’m so sick of writing about.

And so here I am. Struggling to get by. Some days are pretty good. Some days are cloudy and hard. Logic and instinct tell me that this will pass as I settle into a routine and get used to all the changes. And I know that they (the logic and the instinct) are right. But the depression and the anxiety are big fat liars that terrify me with thoughts of never recovering.

In the mean time I think I might get back to my Happy Things project. From now until the end of the year (at least). It was like a meditation for me. To take a moment and dedicate it to at least one thing that brought me joy. To photograph it and make art out of it made it my daily prayer.

Does anyone want to join me? I think I’ll do it all on Instagram this time (since I’m still avoiding my big camera since it’s broken and I’m afraid it’s broken forever). We could use one of those newfangled hashtag thingamajigs people use to find each other’s projects or something. What do you think? Are you in?
UPDATE: the tag will be #findinghappy2013 Hope to see you there!