live

Some days, when I least expect it, I still see the muskellunge on the surface, just before he turned his head from the side of the boat and bit through the line; causing our tiny craft to rock back from the release of a heavy weight as he smoothly pivoted into the wave and disappeared into inky blackness.

It shouldn’t still bother me, they’re a fish of ten thousand casts I’m told. The apex predator larger than anything else in our land so over-fished that for the chance to even cast a line in their waters one must make at least a full day’s drive. And I’d somehow managed to accidentally hook him while jigging for walleye. Which really meant in the end he had come to me through no skill of my own. It’s true I had gotten it to the surface by myself and even to the boat, but as we all know, nothing counts until it’s out of the net and into your arms.

The more I think about it the more it makes me realize that perhaps what happened was just a chance to inspire motivation. That even though I had no skill at casting, through some blinding amounts of luck, I got to experience what some people spend years planning, hoping, and trying for. That I had received a preview by the hands of fate at what one could accomplish should they be so ambitious to dedicate themselves towards it. It’s odd to think about this level of despair and self-reflection over a fish that wasn’t caught.

Because in the end, really we release them all anyway.

But I’ve been feeling terrible. I’m guessing it could be tied to a reduction in the meds or the allergic reaction I’m developing. I hate everything. I can’t get interested in anything, even things I was previously interested in. All I keep thinking about is my ex . . . from a year ago. I’m becoming better at lying lately, more to myself than others but it would seem I may be improving on both. I’m running out of reasons, but keep moving forward. I have an inspection at 11:00 tomorrow up in Evanston and somehow lost my camera and, as an added bonus, I’ve been lying in bed unsuccessfully trying to sleep.

I had an epiphany of sorts the other day in regards to the ex that made me feel better: that I needed to forgive myself for not being able to deduce that she was a chronic self-saboteur. That the endless problems she created were roadblocks to prevent her from reaching a failure. A self-imposed, self-destructive safety net of sorts. That even given my work schedule at the time, the average person who’d never encountered something like that before. At the time this revelation was half-way mind-blowing. Up until now I’d been blaming myself for over-reacting at the end and feeling not just betrayed, but that I was the cause of being betrayed. Some people unfortunately are just more complicated a level of jigsaw puzzle than one can expect to quickly understand and when grave externalities like life are at work it doesn’t make it any easier.

And somehow, while remembering this in bed didn’t help, typing it all out sure did. Ok, tomorrow, I’m calling Stain on the way back from the inspection to see about fixing a bunch of small things around the place. I know I should be able to do some of these things myself, but honestly, that’s one of the excuses I’ve been using for the past 5 months. Time to move, in more ways than one.

Well . . . the good news is I’ll be getting off bupropian (wellbutrin) soon. Not to say that it hasn’t been a major improvement. The thing is when I started taking it a few months ago, both my doctor and I agreed I probably shouldn’t look at the side affects of the medication in order to avoid a psychosomatic response, generally thinking that if there was an actual reaction that could be a problem, that it would be fairly obvious.

So a few weeks back I took the kayak out to the river and while that was therapy in itself, afterwards I noticed some itchy dark spots on my legs. I grew up with a cornfield and forest behind my house, and have seen my fair share of poison ivy, but this seemed to dark (poison ivy marks tend to be red.) Although they sure itched like it was from poison ivy.

Thinking that they might be mosquito or bug bites I tried to ignore them in hopes they would die down and it wasn’t until I changed my sheets that the marks went away. Flash forward to a week ago when I tried taking the kayak out again (with mixed results I won’t get into in this post) and again noticed dark brown itchy spots, this time on my wrist and hands. When I scratch, the area behind where they spot is leaves a trail in the form of a welt and it wasn’t until a couple hours ago that I looked up “buproprian hives” in google. Sure enough thats a somewhat common side effect and is quite possibly a source.

This is a shame because up until now the stuff has really been working and I was hoping to be able to dose off this stuff officially rather than potentially have to come to an “emergency stop” before the treatment had been fully completed. Odd to think that this side affect would arise after about six months of treatment instead of when I first started.

On the bright side, at least the medication was able to pull me back to a fairly normal existence and I feel better than I have in years.

I’ve never been so out of the christmas spirit as I have been this year. Even less friends around, still no girlfriend, and to make things worse, one of the friends who moved away came back to visit and, while intoxicated, he asked what had happened between between me and her.

And I told him the truth. That she was clinically depressed and refused to talk to anyone about it, even if I took care of the costs because while money can’t buy happiness, overcoming depression isn’t always cheap. That one of the primary external factors that was getting her down was her job and that I’d secretly saved up enough money from work for her to go back to school like she’d wanted to if she could afford it. And that just before I could tell her all this, she dumped me so she could focus more time pursuing her dream job.

I mean, I know that’s an excuse, that she had lost interest or that I now represented an external source and it was the most painless thing that was true that came to mind. When he asked why I never told her this I also told him that I had and that I’d never really heard from her since.

I don’t know if I’d ever wanted to more than today. I’d been invited to my brother’s place for dinner and spent the day with him, his wife, and his wife’s family. While I tried to keep up with conversation the only thing I could think about was thinking of a way to relate to these strangers without revealing that my only real hobby was being severely depressed. That while the medication was working in some ways, such as helping me concentrate, that it might be making me more emotional. That I needed to contact a doctor and possibly get an MRI of my ankle. That I was relatively devoid of any physical activity until then and even though I’d considered riding my bike, the dizziness was still strong enough it made me concerned about keeping my balance. That much of this may have stemmed from a kitchen fire a year ago and I haven’t felt quite the same since.

In the back of my mind there was this feeling that had been there before but with a purpose, that “if I could just make it through this.” But then of course I remembered there really was nothing I was looking forward to and certainly no external sign of real relief on the horizon.

Afterwards I picked up some things that had been left at my parents and headed back to my place. Once back to the empty home I looked in the fridge, came to the conclusion that few things do as poor a job to uplift someone’s spirits as a depressant, and elected to partake in some tap water. I guess it helps to think of myself as sick and the stuff in those cans and bottles are only making me sicker.

I bought an inflatable kayak and will visit the buddy I’d mentioned earlier down at his place in Florida next month. I can only hope the thing works because online purchases always strike me as somewhat impossible to return. But at least until then, until I get it unpacked from the box and realize there’s no way I can get it in even checked luggage or that I do get it down there and something happens like it rips in half, at least it’s something artificial to look forward to as that source of relief on the horizon.

as we all drive along
betting on another day.