Saturday, September 27, 2008

Thoughts Swirling~

Yet, I can't seem to transform them into journal entries of any kind.  A record of the kaleidoscope of my emotions escapes me.  All the colors of my thoughts, the varied shades of feeling just drift, with no canvas to be painted on, for future perusal.

When I was a teenager, I was diagnosed with a mild form of depression-chronic dysthymia.  This condition assaults me a couple times a year, lasting from a few weeks to months.  During these "flare-ups" my inner life comes to a standstill.  I've devoloped the skills to get through the basics of life, go to work, eat, sleep, function normally to all appearances.  But activities with any kind of meaning, anything productive in my life, are beyond my abilities.

Logically, I know when I'm depressed-emotionally, I can't drag myself out of it.  My mind becomes a maze of negativity and emptiness, that doesn't seem to have an exit.  I wander through this maze in an awareness of it, but no map to lead me to the open spaces beyond.

The frustrating thing is that I can feel life slipping by, and yet do nothing to grasp it, nothing to lead to a feeling of accomplishment, progress, evolvement, involvement. 

This particular period has left me bereft of the words to express it, to move it along and get past it.  It's a new twist.  Words have never deserted me this way before.  One of the things I've always been able to do is write, sometimes over and over, about my feelings of uselessness during these bouts.  I have notebooks with pages and pages full of self-flagellation to prove it.  My own worst critic has never been at a loss for words, still running rampant through my head, even as I write this. 

Yet this time, till now, I haven't been able to capture them on a page.  I'm chaining myself to this venue of expression to write this.  My hopes are that, like a pinhole in a dam, these few words will erode the wall, particle by particle, opening a channel for these swirling thoughts to begin flowing again, onto the pages of my life.

I've wasted some beautiful late summer and early fall days in this maze of depression.  I regret that.  I mourn the fact that they're escaping into the past without my having left a memory on them.  Just an emptiness that I haven't been able to fill.

Today is the last nice day, in the forecast, for now.  It's turning colder and cloudy at the beginning of the week.  I'm going to make an effort to get past the inertia I'm feeling.  Take a lunch, blank notebook and pen, to the lake and see if I can't find the words to express some of these swirling thoughts.

                                                                   <3

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Passions

Question-What are you Passionate about?  What makes your world rock?  I'm not necessarily talking about sex here, but deep abiding passions.  Things in your life that mean "everything".

The definitions that apply, when I looked it up: intense, driving or overmastering feeling or conviction.  A strong liking or desire for or devotion to some activity, object, or concept.  An object of desire or deep interest. 

I've been reading journals, news articles, and witnessing the passionate way some express their views and beliefs in regard to politics.  Politics doesn't do it for me.  I won't even talk about it with anyone, in depth.  In fact, I get downright disgusted by the way politicians attack and belittle each other, twisting the other's words around to look like they mean something completely different.  In a very broad sense they lie about each other.  Don't I have any opinions about the issues?  Of course, I do.  I just don't feel a driving need to express them.  Truthfully, I don't feel that my opinion would make that much of a difference, or that my actions would make any more than a teeny tiny ripple in the grand scheme of things.  (Yes, a tiny ripple is action that leads to more action- in the right places.)  But my tiny ripple is confined to a very small area that reaches the shore and just smoothes out.

My son shows great passion in the things he believes, and I envy him that.  I hope that he can fulfill his dreams of making a difference in the things he believes so strongly in.  I'm discovering that he is becoming a man who thinks outside the box, that cares, that is doing things to change his little corner of the world.  I'm very proud of him for that.

I've witnessed the passion for family.  The love and devotion to do absolutely everything that it takes for others.  Do I have that kind of passion?  No.  Sadly.  At least I don't seem to have it.  Yes, I do love my son, brother, etc.  But I have actually walked away before.  My brother and I were estranged for over 25 years.  There are extenuating circumstances and convoluted explanations for why it lasted so long, but are not for this entry.

I spent the day, yesterday, distracting myself with unimportant, useless activities.  I just couldn't muster up the physical or emotional energy to do the things I should have and wanted to.  So I just piddled the day away.  I wrote an entry in I Was Thinking about my day, my life, how quiet and uninteresting it all is.  That bothered me and ate at my brain.

Still this morning, it's there.  Making a list of things I enjoy, things I might have a passion for las left me with this realization.  There just isn't anything that I am that passionate about.  It really bothers me.  Why?  Why isn't there something in my life that means the "all"?

Oh, I have alot of things that I enjoy: reading, watching sports, swimming, crafts(many different things), learning to use the computer.  I'm not even passionate about my health, doing everything I can to ensure that I remain as active and strong as I can, for as long as I can.

I've got some real exploring to do here, to try and figure out why.  The more digging I do into my life and feelings, the more questions I have and the more elusive the answers become.  And honestly, I'm not very proud of the person I am. 

If life were ideal, I'd have the time and space and knowledge to be able to figure this all out and change it. A retreat, an extended vacation, a camping trip alone, surrounded by nature. 

Maybe I'm spreading myself too thinly, trying to do too many things, keeping an interest in too many things at one time to truly devote myself to what would be most important to me.  And I can't even define what that is, other than trying to figure myself out.

                                                   ::Sigh::       <3  Leigh