Keep a journal

what happened

I taught my first workshop on “Getting Started” with OS X. Mario gave me a ride home today.

details

(You can read the details on my LiveJournal page if you are on my ‘friends’ list)

gratitude

Today I am grateful for my journals. I have filled five or six notebooks of various sizes with my thoughts, ideas, and inspiration. I’ve bought most of them from Barnes and Noble bookstores over the years. My first journals are mostly a record of events, goals, and my feelings. I usually wrote when I was feeling bad, as a way to deal with my emotions. Later, I began just logging what happened. Then I added gratitude entries. Now, I want to balance a log with ideas and creative efforts. I’ve also discovered lately the utility of having a journal in my pocket. I buy the Moleskin journals and I love them. My latest one is red.

Today I am grateful for watching a beautiful movie: Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby. It made me cry. I wrote in my journal.

I want to make art like that! It was beautiful! What if my art made people cry? Spoke to their deepest feelings? Made people feel exalted, ennobled? It would mean creating extraordinary beauty through extraordinary effort, after years of hard practice.

My avenues for making art are through my martial arts practice and my efforts to become a musician. This is an exciting prospect. If I immerse myself in my art every day, in a few years I will be ready to share it with other people. In a few dozen years, I hope my art will provoke strong emotions in other people. I want to make people cry.

what happened

Here’s my schedule every day. I wake up at 9 or 10. Tool around the house doing chores. I water the plants, wash a load of clothes, catch up on my 43things comments and cheers. Then, I pack my lunch, take a shower, and hop on my bicycle. The ride to work is exactly six miles. All this week, the wind has been blowing hard out of the south. This slows me down considerably, adding five to ten minutes onto my ride. My fastest time so far has been 24 minutes, but with the wind blowing and the hot sun, it can take as long as 36 or 37 minutes. After I arrive at the townsquare, I park my bike in my secret spot, then climb the stairs of the parking garage. On the third floor there is a great spot where the wind always blows hard. I stand there for twenty minutes or so, letting the breeze cool me off. Then I walk over to Barnes & Noble for a passion fruit iced tea. I’m at the Apple store by ten ‘til one. I towel off, freshen up, and change into my work clothes in the bathroom. I work the store all day. On my lunch break, I usually go across the street to Central Market. I bring my sack lunch, but I usually buy a side of french fries and a drink. After work, I hope on my bike and ride back home.

details

(You can read the details on my LiveJournal page if you are on my ‘friends’ list)

gratitude

Today I am grateful for a great crew of people at work. They are a bright, fun group of people from a wide range of backgrounds. I like working with them.

I’m also grateful for the relatively cool weather we’ve been having. While it gets into the high nineties each day, on my ride to work the past few days, the wind has blown a lot, and there has been a lot of cloud cover. It’s not unbearable, and I can’t ask for much more.

I’m grateful that I get to make a bunch of people’s day every time I work. My company is doing very well and they give me the flexibility to go above and beyond to make my customers happy. This is very cool.

I’m grateful for the wide range of interests that I have. It keeps life interesting.

what happened

I’ve had a couple of good days at work. It’s been extremely busy because of our “back to school” specials. If you are a student and you buy a laptop, you get a free iPod. We have been understaffed some, so I’ve kept very busy. I haven’t had time to think about my strengths, but perhaps I can focus on them today.

I found out that my favorite philosophy teacher died last week. He had been struggling with depression and took his own life. This hit me hard. I feel sad, hurt, and angry. I also feel grateful that I was able to successfully treat my own depression. I have come dangerously close to suicide myself in the past few years.

I worked a night at the Italian Inn this weekend. It was the first time in several months and I was anxious about how people would treat me. They welcomed me back warmly. It feels good knowing that I can go back and work there if I want to.

details

(You can read the details on my LiveJournal page if you are on my ‘friends’ list)

gratitude

I’m grateful for making it through fifteen years of intensely bad moods. A haze of fear and sadness hangs over my teenage and early adult years. I felt unsure, less than, unsteady, and dumb. I was convinced that I had some chronic disease: what else could explain how terrible I felt most days? I was right. I did have a chronic disease, but it wasn’t my body that was making me feel terrible. This disease started in my brain and seeped out from there.

I did okay in spite of my moods. I developed interests early on and my love of learning propelled me through those years. I got a full scholarship to college and moved off to Florida to go to school. I made good grades and was active on campus. That all stopped when my depression became unbearably bad. I spent half a semester in my dorm room, lying on the bed and watching TV and thinking about death. My older sister helped me to pack up, come home, and enroll in an outpatient program at a hospital.

I haven’t been depressed for longer than a day for almost six months now. Every day, I take three pills. Two little white pills during the day, and one brown one at night. They have made a world of difference. For the first time in my life, I feel whole. I have energy, enthusiasm, ideas, and confidence. I feel at home in the world. There are no black monsters waiting for me in the night.

Sometimes I forget that it’s the pills that have given me this gift. My money is short, and the pills aren’t cheap, so I skip a couple of doses. Like magic, the moods come wafting back, with their train of ghostly fear and darkness. I’m grateful that a few little white pills drives the moods away.

I’m grateful that I have a future. Depression robs you of your future. In the thick of it, you are convinced that every day from now until with eternity will be filled with horror and dread. It’s nice to imagine happy tomorrows. It is something that the undepressed take for granted. I don’t. And I am grateful.

I’m not naive: I know that depression has a bad habit of returning. But I’m grateful for every day that I spend without it. I’ll continue taking my little white pills for as long as they give me a future.

what happened

I haven’t worked on my non-work goals much in the past two days. I’ve been too distracted by the challenge of finding enough food to get me to my next paycheck. (Yes, you can make biscuits with only flour, cooking oil, baking powder, and water.) I’m reading Marcus Buckingham’s Go, Put Your Strengths to Work and I’m fired up.

details

(You can read the details on my LiveJournal page if you are on my ‘friends’ list)

gratitude

I’m grateful for growing up as a “smart kid.” The other kids watched the movie, I read the book. The other kids hated school, I loved it. The other kids wanted to be firefighters and astronauts. I wanted to be a biologist or an inventor. I was lucky to be insulated somewhat from the abuses that most nerds get. I didn’t go to a public school and my parents encouraged my nerdy interests.

I’m grateful to have discovered my natural nerdiness early in my adult life. Yes, I love to think and learn and I’ve embraced it. I’m happy that I’m allowing these deep-rooted parts of my personality to flourish. I am learning how to use these traits at work and in my life’s projects.

Two words: college professor. This is my most exciting long-range goal. It beats out becoming a musician, mastering the martial arts, and weaving a tapestry of compassion. It’s going to be an incredible trip. I will get to flex my mental muscles every day, and learn a great deal about a broad range of fields. Yay!

what happened

I didn’t do much besides for going to work today. I think this was my last day of adjusting to the meds, so I was a little off-kilter. Kim and I had another fight, but we made up before we went to sleep.

details

(You can read the details on my LiveJournal page.)

gratitude

I’m grateful for discovering the martial arts as a teen. My Mom signed up the four younger children for a tae-kwondo class at our masjid. The teacher was a quiet, stern man named Brother Sharief. He was a tough teacher but I quickly discovered my knack for kicking and jumping. Thus was born my love for the martial arts.

I’m grateful for the strong, flexible body that I have. It makes learning yoga and taekwondo enjoyable. I’m grateful for the great yoga DVD that Kim bought several years ago, and for the reference books on yoga and tae-kwondo that I bought earlier this year. They have helped me learn a lot already and I haven’t exhausted them yet. I’m also grateful for the past month of training. I have made progress and gotten stronger and more fit as a result.

I’ve barely scratched the surface of my martial arts practice. I will continue to grow and learn over my entire life. I’m grateful for the chance to immerse myself in thousand year-old traditions, to spend my life pursuing beautiful martial art.

what happened

I haven’t written a journal entry in over a month. Since my last entry, my marriage has improved some, I got promoted to full-time at the Apple store, all the girls visited from California for Dad’s birthday party, and I’ve made some progress playing the guitar.

details

I could try to give a play-by-play of the past six weeks, but the prospect is exhausting. I’m writing this entry at 3:00am, so my concentration isn’t sharp enough to attempt that kind of stunt.

I’m very broke until my full-time hours kick in at Apple. Yes, they offered me full time concierge a few weeks ago. I guess sending my “plan for perfecting concierge” the same day that the regional manager Ginger was visiting went over well. Still, I haven’t seen my hours increase yet, and not working at the restaurant has really cut down my cash flow. I haven’t been able to afford my drugs in the past week. This is why I’m typing a journal entry at this godforsaken hour instead of sleeping. I finally borrowed enough cash from my Mom to buy enough medicine until my paycheck arrives, but my sleep schedule has been askew for at least a week now. Now that I’ll have health insurance, life will be much easier. I can go to my doctor regularly, and buy medicine monthly instead of weekly.

My projects are going well. I’ve managed to conjure a bit more focus for my music and my martial art. If I could turn up the intensity by twenty percent and keep it there for six months, I would make some decent progress on both these fronts. Life is short…

Now I’m going to switch over to free association mode. You’ll need a LiveJournal account to see the results.

what happened

We had nasty fights. I cried in her arms. We decided to split. We decided not to split. She asked me for sex. I couldn’t. I spent half the night at my parents. We sent each other warm text messages this morning.

I also read Coltrane: The Story of a Sound with my brother, checked out a half-dozen cool cognitive science books, and devised an exciting plan for mastering yoga and tae-kwon-do. But these events had a hundredth of the emotional punch of my marriage troubles.

details

I’m bad at capturing emotional events in my journal. I typically put them behind me without any reflection. I should take a page from Sherlock’s playbook: she has a marvelous knack for writing about intense and private emotions. I’m convinced that this is one of keys to her extraordinary resilience. Working it out in black and white is good for the heart. So here goes…

Things reached a breaking point this week. Our stockpiled resentment and negative feelings spilled over into shouting arguments. We both said some really nasty things. I had been in avoidance mode for weeks now. I’ve spent many hours in the back room with my guitar and my voice recorder, working on my music and avoiding the inevitable fights. What happened to our friendship? What happened to our delight in each other’s company? We used to adore each other.

We can still feel the reverberations from my episodes of depression last year. We haven’t dealt with it. It’s hard to overestimate the pain of having a suicidal spouse. It’s hard to overestimate the pain of being a suicidal spouse.

^{...more forthcoming; I have to fix my bike to get work}

what happened

I worked at the restaurant tonight. It was a quiet night—I only had a few tables. My mood was much better than yesterday. My day was relaxed and happy.

details

I popped out of bed early this morning, my mind abuzz with ideas. I think I felt the Lexapro kicking in, because I had a high tide of positive feelings. I decided that I should volunteer my Fridays at the Boys and Girls club, doing the same stuff I used to do for the Museum with the teens. I also decided that I should pursue my plan for forming a happiness support group, including Ken, my therapist. These are ideas which may or may not come to fruition. It is fun to dream.

I went back to bed after Kim left for work. I woke up a little after noon. I meditated, journaled, and read more of Oliver Twist. When Kim got back from work, I helped her pay a few bills. We fooled around some, then drove over to Fort Worth.

I felt strong and relaxed at the restaurant tonight. I volunteered to take the big party of fifteen. It was a quiet night otherwise.

what happened

I was off today – off of work and off center. I slept in the car for most of the day while Kim worked. Then we went to the DMA for a lecture on jewelry from the Indian subcontinent.

details

I attribute it to waiting until the afternoon to take my Lexapro. I usually take half a dose first thing in the morning. Either way, I was in a funk for most of the day. I slept in the car while Kim went to class, drove her to Fort Worth, then slept in the car while she worked from 1:00 until 6:00.

I ate lunch, scraped together enough change for a gallon of gas and a pack of Now-n-Laters, then went back to sleep. I thought about how I’ve used sweets to self-medicate since I was very young. I can remember compulsively eating all the candy I could get my hands on. From the lens of adulthood, I see this as my way of making myself feel better when my moods were storming. Thank God for cheap candy. A well-tuned brain would have been a better gift, but I’ll take what I can get.

Kim and I drove to Dallas after she got off of work. They had a guest lecturer tonight. Kim was excited about seeing her because she read her book last semester. Susan L. Beningson is a jewelry collector who specializes in gold jewelry from India. She was a poor lecturer, mumbling and inanimate. Even Kim was bored. At least the museum was fun. We played around in the gift shop for an hour, then drove back to Trophy Club.

I called in my prescription, so we stopped by the Walgreens on our way home. At home, I meditated for an hour, then I gave Kim a shoulder and neck massage for a half hour. Sleep was welcome tonight.

gratitude

I’m grateful for growing up in a house surrounded by books. My mother was much more of a reader than my dad, although he had more books than she did. He read mostly to learn more about Islam and black history. I can’t recall ever seeing him reading a novel. I can picture him with his religious books spread across the bedroom floor, scribbling messy notes onto yellow legal pads. I inherited his love of learning.

My mother was the novel reader. She kept a stack of novels next to her bed and read them at a furious pace, in a race to outrun darkness. She read any chance that she got. Taking care of six kids took most of her time, but she’d read anyway. She had a book to her nose while she waited in the car, between loads at the coin laundry, and during many a late night on the couch. Sometimes she lost her race against her moods. She’d spend long stretches in bed. Then, her books were her only connection to life. If she stopped reading, it was a very bad sign.

I have inherited both the moods and the coping strategy. I’ve often found myself running hard, a dark fog on my heels, clutching a book to my chest like a talisman. I read many novels growing up, in a wide range of genres. Over the years, I read probably a quarter of the books in our small public library. I spent many, many hot summer afternoons buried in a Western or a mystery. My taste has changed over the years. As I got older I tended to choose non-fiction books of psychology, philosophy, or physics. These aren’t as effective as novels at warding off moods, but they are more satisfying intellectually.

The upside to all my compulsive reading is that I’ve learned to read books at a blistering pace. This has been a great boon since I am a naturally curious person. I’ve derived great joy from reading over the years and my world has been tremendously enlarged. For this I am grateful.

I have over two-hundred books on my shelves right now. I’ve purchased most of them in the past few years. Most of them I bought from thrift stores and second-hand shops. Fantastic books! I own novels, books of poetry, philosophy, popular science and books on jazz. I could spend the next year doing nothing but reading, and I probably wouldn’t finish my whole collection. For this embarrassment of riches, I am grateful.

Who knows what wondrous books await me? I can’t imagine ever losing my intense curiosity. The world is such a huge, complex place, I will never run out of things to learn about. I’m especially excited about the great works of imagination that I will encounter – great novels, plays, and poetry that will expand me in ways that I cannot predict.

what happened

I worked from five until close tonight. Until work started, I read a good part of The How of Happiness, started a gratitude journal, sang a little, and did my 75 minutes of martial arts.

details

Today was a really good day. I spent a good part of it reading Sonja Lyubomirsky’s excellent book The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want. I’ve decided to try several of the interventions that she recommends in the book. Namely, expressing gratitude, practicing acts of kindness, and taking care of my body with meditation and exercise. She had some great suggestions for getting the most sustained happiness boost from expressing gratitude. I’m going to try out her approach.

My meditation is going well this week. I have given myself the challenge of meditating for an hour every day this week. Two days down, five to go. It’s also my weekly “stretch goal” for the Game. This week, if I don’t meet my stretch goal my partner, Munir, has to pay a consequence.

I washed my hair today. I’m going to try to heal my scalp. It gets dry and flaky in the winter months, but I’m going to try to take better care of it.

gratitude

As a part of my new approach to expressing gratitude, I’m not going to be keeping a daily gratitude list. Here’s my pen and paper entry from earlier today:

then
I’m grateful for the people who encouraged me to draw and be artistic. Uncle George would send great art supplies in the mail. I remember the excitement I’d feel when we would get a big box of stuff from the UPS truck. The clothes were nice, but I loved the big bundles of pens, packages of markers, and drawing pads that Uncle George would send. My parents encouraged me too. Mom would buy giant rolls of butcher paper that Munir and I would fill with drawings. When I was older, Mom would take me to the Motts 5 and 10 store to buy art supplies. She would also take us to the library where I’d check out dozens of books on drawing. My dad would bring home the occasional pad, and my sister Arletta always asked about my drawing, ever after she left for college.

now
I’m grateful for my knack for the artistic. I get great pleasure out of drawing, singing, writing, and doing martial art. I can get hours of enjoyment without spending much money or relying on external aids. I _loved* my drawing projects last year – working through the Betty Edwards book was a great deal of fun. I liked the challenge and rigor of the program, and the sense of of accomplishment I felt after I finished. I liked drawing the Perfect 10 girls even more – it felt slightly scandalous and it took all of my concentration and skill to complete the project. I’m grateful for a steady hand and for the persistence and curiosity that have turned me into a decent artist.

in the future
I’m excited about the possibilities in my immediate future. I imagine I’ll keep drawing and singing right on into old age. I have thousands hours of enjoyment creating beauty ahead of me. For this I am very grateful.