Just a Cog

Historically I find myself with lightning bolts of positive, creative and/or inspiring ideas on the tail end of excrutiating bouts of depression. Here I record it publicly for the first time. Perhaps the admission will calm the nauseating nerve wracking state of existence the next time D for Depression and A for anxiety decides to take over my body, when I fear the worst...that it could be an indefinite state of being. I could record the last two weeks of social activity, showcasing my good time of a life that I spend with my beautiful wife and our adorable dog and cat children, aboding in our modest little house made gorgeous by the blood sweat and tears of our very own beings...surrounded by our friends...who are funny, intelligent, stylish, adorable, kind, thoughtful, sweet, loyal, incredible without a doubt. We spend Memorial Day with the gals. We share food and laughs and a lazy water fight. A dear friend comes to town and shacks up with us for a few days. We have date nights and we have dinners and birthday drinks and other various social interactions. All the while I feel exhausted, fatigued, burnt out, out of shape, unmotivated, uninspired and downright sad. I don't sleep and when I do I have nightmares. When I wake I fear the worst things happening, and by the end of the day I am ready for the sofa or the bed. I look at my wife, cooking cheerfully in the kitchen and I utter various combinations or a singular statement of any of the following... "I feel nauseous and I don't know why... I want to cry...My body aches, head hurts, I feel out of shape, I need to excercise but I feel perfectly incapable of lifting a finger...My body feels literally heavy, tired and sad, even my eyelids feel weighted, I can't breathe..." We have a healthy understanding of one another's patterns, weaknesses, strengths, and battles, which makes for what I find to be a healthy breeding ground of coping mechanisms. She won't wallow with me in my symptoms but she certainly won't bark at me to get the F over myself either. She nourishes the positive and asks me what I might be able to do to feel better. She leaves me to work it out but is available if I need to talk it out. All the while she makes healthy food for us to eat and continues to do her part to contribute health and happiness to the life that we have committed to living with each other. Fast forward to now. After work on Saturday we delivered a home cooked meal to a friend who had just come home from a 3 week hospital stay. We then spent the evening celebrating with our vast and colorful Austin community at the third annual Queerbomb. On Sunday we went to a free screening at the Alamo of a new movie called Hit and Run written and produced by Dax Shephard, starring himself and Kristen Bell, followed by a Q&A with Dax and Kristen, which was awesome! The weekend left me feeling invigorated and able to soak in all the light that I missed while I was "down." I am seeing the physical toll that my mental bout has bestowed. I feel a bit squishier. I haven't been to yoga in two weeks. But the cloud has lifted. My observation at this moment is that it might be quite possible to stockpile the wonder that is bogged down by the darkness and infuse it into a more lucid presence...creating something new. My process? Hence the proverb, "It is always darkest before the dawn." I am teeming with ideas for a new endeavor. Something that we have been tossing about for years may come to light in our near future. I don't want to share it all at once, but I have a gut feeling that now we are all just a cog in the momentum of it. I am smiling.