locavore

I’ll get one over the phone next week. I hope my sister doesn’t find out. She’s skeptical about the whole subject and I’ll never hear the end of it. Anyway, I’m looking forward to it.

I think I’ve found a way to manage my depression in a manner which feels right to me. When I feel the first snippets of it, it’s like the first signs of the flu, when I get that first headache right around the temples.

When I start feeling down, I’ve learned to slow my pace as much as possible and do something enjoyable from my list of favorite activities. If nothing else, swinging in the hammock is a safe place to ride out the storm of my emotions.

The journaling also helps a lot, especially since these are for my eyes only. I can place my thoughts on paper and allow them to leave my mind. Most of the time, I don’t go back and read these entries, but I know I can if I want to.

As a wonderful side benefit, I’ve tackled some of those issues. I guess I got tired of writing about them over and over again. To me, what was important was that I faced them when I was ready and not a moment sooner. There are more issues, of course, but I won’t force myself to face them until I’m ready to.

In the meantime, I will enjoy today a little more than I enjoyed yesterday. I hope to enjoy tomorrow just a little more, and so on. I also won’t beat myself up after a regression. Instead, I’ll record it in my journal, reflect, and modify my recipe for managing my depression to deal with the reason(s) for my regression.

Like so many people, I’ve felt the dull ache of depression for so many years (about as long as I can remember, actually). It may be denial on my part, but I feel it’s the price I pay for the times when I’m on the opposite end of the spectrum, when I’m joyfully passionate.

Perhaps that’s why I don’t want to eliminate my depression. Doing that means I would always be in the middle of the spectrum and I would no longer feel the giddy high. I’d rather just manage it so it wouldn’t be too low.