The missing piece

I've been doing December for a while now. We're past the half-way mark, past the solstice and really in the home stretch now. Just a few days left to go. Of course, it's been feeling interminable. Over the weekend, I got out a jigsaw puzzle and started putting it together. There is something very calming about jigsaw puzzles.

I'm sure someone has written their master's thesis about their neurologic effect. To me it seems obvious enough why they are satisfying: the visual skills that we honed through generations of gathering food, (seeking out shapes and colours that we recognized as "mushroom", "berry", "plant with tuber below", etc.), still enjoy hunting through the pieces for the shapes and colours that create a recognizable image.

A little 500-piece puzzle; one of many that I won at a penny auction
at the West Dublin Hall (several years ago now). 

I find jigsawing meditative. I can get into a Zen state where all I am thinking about are the colours and shapes. It's all about the edges – the shifts in colour within the design and the shapes of the pieces themselves. 

However, I don't always get synced up and become one with the puzzle. Jigsawing can also lead to rumination. And rumination is a double-edged deal. It can be dark and it can be light. I can think about things that take me to a place of grief or anger or disappointment; I can think about things that take me to a place of joy and uplift and excitement. And, as my therapist spent many hours trying to teach me back in the day, at its best, it's not either/or, it's AND. 

Thinking about gladsome tidings does not wipe out pain. And thinking about grief doesn't have to erase joy. Of course, holding both at the same time is not easy. Although human beings are capable of believing many contradictory things at the same time, we also have a tendency to pick one side of a dichotomy and stay there. 

I was on the dark side of December for a good few days this month. And I'm afraid that jaunty little jigsaw puzzle sent me spiralling further down. 

Until I remembered that the antidote for disconnection is gratitude. I sat down and wrote a list of all of the people I feel thankful for. People who taught me things (even hard things), people who helped or guided me, people who gave me gifts this year – gifts of connection and belonging, gifts of being seen, heard and accepted, moments, presence. 

There were 75 people on my list. And although I am still feeling sad and I am still wishing December was over, I am also holding that I am a very fortunate person to have so many people and moments to be grateful for — and to know it. 

It's both.

It's all. 

(And December is almost over. THANKS BE!) 

Long December

Every year, I wish the same wish – that I could go to sleep on December 1 and wake up on December 31, just in time to welcome in the new year.

Sometimes, December feels easier and sometimes it feels more difficult.

I know there are things that I can do to make December better for myself. One of them is blogging, something that I have not been doing for quite a while.

So, I'm going to try to post at least a few times this month. I've been thinking about a lot of things (as usual) and maybe it is time to start trying to put some of those thoughts into words.

In the meantime, here is a link to my ever-growing, end-of-year, YouTube playlist. These are the songs that comfort, console and keep me company through this dark, dark month. Perhaps they will improve December for you, too:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUCTQC2TUoqBl3DQ5x7IgBY7tFJdnhXgI

Fresh start

I have posted on this blog at least once a month since 2013. But this winter, I hit a dry spell. I hit the wall. I had a number of ideas for blog posts, but the gravity of my mood kept bearing them to the ground before they could get from my brain to my fingers through the keyboard and out onto the Internet. 

I don't know about you, but I found this past winter extremely demoralizing. 

Between Trump and the rhetoric of division, constant reports of war and oppression, more symptoms of ongoing environmental collapse – ugh – it felt heavy. It felt horrible. 

It felt like the winter of "why bother"? And worse still "Why connect"? I could feel my circle shrink. Social media lost its appeal. For a couple of months, work and Netflix owned my soul. I wanted so desperately to escape.

• • •

And now here comes spring, both literally and metaphorically. 

For better and for worse, humans have an aptitude for bouncing back. Surprise, surprise, again and again, we turn out to be resilient enough for our lives, for this world and all of the ways in which we distort and devastate it. "Oh, so this is the way it is going to be now," we say to ourselves as we begin to adapt to whatever: the horrible news, heartbreak, health problems, loss of loved ones or work or money, and/or a deluge of loved ones, of work and money, healing, falling in love, exciting news – whatever the change, challenge or circumstance, no matter how hard it knocks us down, shocks us, knocks the wind from our sails, we struggle back to our feet and try – try to figure it out, to adjust, to decide: "What next? What now?"

Seeds sprouting on my window sill.
(In my low-rent toilet paper roll "jiffy pots".)

• • •

I biked to the Farmer's Market last Thursday.

It was snowing.

The world smelled the way it does when there is a summer rainstorm – you know that scent? It's unusual here at this time of year.

I wondered if there was a word for it and discovered there is: 

Petrichor (/ˈpɛtrᵻkɔər/) is the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry soil. The word is constructed from Greek πέτρα petra, meaning "stone", and ἰχώρ īchōr, the fluid that flows in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology. (Wikipedia). 

Isn't that an amazing word (and concept)? The life energy of the gods falls upon stone. And creates a scent that is evocative and thrilling, that wakes us up to our passion and potential.

I feel it everywhere now. It's in the return of the sun, the flowers, the osprey. 

Shy daffodil.

It is the return of hope. 

Welcome back. 

Let's do wonderful things together.

Seasonal Netflix recommendation

I don't usually do this, but I feel compelled to tell you about a show that's available on Netflix, especially if you're looking for some deep, darkly-funny entertainment over the holidays.

The show is called Please Like Me. It's a billed as a "comedy drama" series, but I would describe it as a sitragicom – a situation tragicomedy.

I first saw the show a few years ago when it appeared briefly as a summer fill-in show on CBC. I got hooked. CBC only showed Series 1 and 2, so after those were done I had to hunt down the episodes in Series 3 on sites like YouTube and DailyMotion (usually with terrible sound and image quality).

This fall, Series 1-3 became available on Netflix and I watched all of the episodes again.

The show is centred around a young man named Josh and his friends and family.

At first glance, the show is about Josh coming out and learning how to navigate the world and his sexual territory.

Josh and his best friend Tom seem feckless and insecure. Their friend (and Josh's former girlfriend) Claire is pretty and clever. They are all under-employed and mostly broke and obsessed with things that seem completely trivial.

It could be that show. But the young-people-learning-adulting-through-their-hilarious-experiences premise is basically a cover for a show that is dedicated to a fierce and tender exploration of how people struggle with their mental health and what that experience is like for them and for the people who love them.

Josh's mom, Rose, has bipolar disorder. In the first episode of Series 1, Rose tries to kill herself. Not for the last time, either. Rose spends time in a private psychiatric hospital, where she meets Hannah, Stewart and Ginger. Josh's main love interest, Arnold has a severe anxiety disorder and also spends time at the hospital.

There are so many poignant, funny lines, I can't even begin to tell you about them. The show is hilarious and sly and playful and painful and sad and thought-provoking. There is death and love and and hope and disappointment.

When Josh's dad, Alan (who is just as feckless and insecure as his son) says that he's always felt a bit hopeless as a dad, Josh replies, "Well, you are. I mean, we're all hopeless. I'm hopeless. Arnold's hopeless. Tom, Tom is hopeless."

There are 26 half-hour episodes on Netflix, so if you start binge watching now, you could very easily come up to the fraught and funny Christmas-themed finale of Series 3 at some point on Christmas day.

Warnings: this show contains explicit sexuality, "bad" language, abortion, chicken murder, food porn, lip-syncing, ferris wheels, babies, self-harm, suicide attempts and Australian accents, so if you are not okay with any of those things, this is not the show for you.

Body Wisdom Part 5: Artificially Sweetened

I've been feeling pretty depressed over the past couple of days.

My first thought is: Uh-oh.

I don't want to go back to where I was last winter. I was just congratulating myself last week on how great it feels to not be depressed like I was last year.

So what happened?

Well, partly it's state of the world: refugee crises, mass shootings, the Canadian election. With my return to unlimited high-speed internet, I've been spending too much time focusing my thoughts on things I'm not happy about and feel mostly helpless to change.

But there's another factor: this week, I cut way back on the amount of sugar I eat.

My personality would probably be described by many people (not everyone, mind you) as bright and sunny, energetic and giving.

I like being that way. But I think I've been achieving that result artificially.

Yes, that's right, I believe my personality is artificially sweetened — and has been for most of my life.

On a typical day, I consume somewhere between 20 and 80 grams of sugar.

That's FIVE to TWENTY TEASPOONS of sugar.

Imagine eating 20 teaspoonfuls of sugar.

Even 5 teaspoonfuls.

It's kind of sickening, isn't it?

But when I'm tired or cranky or even not feeling adequately joyful and gregarious, sugar, neatly packaged in a chocolate bar or a can of pop, cheers me up and keeps me going.

"There, there," says sugar, "you are not really tired (or sad or frightened or lonely or frustrated or angry). You just need a little pick-me-up. You can use me to simulate energy (or comfort or safety or love or satisfaction or peace) and you will feel ALL BETTER."

Which maybe wouldn't be a problem except that my standards for my mood are high and it takes a lot of sugar to get me to feel how I want to feel. And that much sugar is simply not good for me. Every year, the amount of sugar I eat packs on a few more pounds and it's getting out of hand. I don't want to develop diabetes, or wear out my hips, knees and ankles (at least not before the rest of me is ready to head off into the sunset anyway).

So, with my move to my winter accommodations, I decided to cut out the daily pop and chocolate bar habit. I started concentrating more on mindful eating (which naturally reduces my overall food intake, because being mindful means I actually notice when I'm full). I picked my yoga back up where I left off a few months ago.

Returning to yoga feels great.

The mindful eating feels challenging, but good.

Cutting back on the sugar feels horrible.

I know what I have to do if I want to be able to change my sugar habit. I have to FEEL my feelings and find more genuine ways to feel energetic, comforted, safe, loved, satisfied and peaceful.

And/or I need to lower the bar and accept that I am going to be way more cranky and tired, and feel way more sadness, fear, loneliness, frustration and anger, without my sugar crutch than I am going to feel with it.

I want to change.

I want to create better health for myself.

So, I'm cutting back on shortcuts. Cutting back on pretending. Cutting back on simulations.

And that scares me. Because I predict that it could mean a very bumpy winter for me indeed.

Damn.

Fear or Love? (A Tiny Home Dilemma)

I don't know if you've already seen this amazing convocation speech that Jim Carrey made at Maharishi University. I know it's been making the rounds on the interwebs.

Here's the clip that's inspiring today's blog post:

I saw this for the first time a few months ago and I'm slowly realizing that this clip sums up the dilemma with which I've been grappling over the past several months.

If you've been reading my blog over the past year or so, you'll know that I bought a Tiny Home in December 2013. I set it up on some friends' land last spring and lived in it through the summer. Then, as winter approached, I realized that winterizing it was going to be a pretty big task. I had gotten depressed and all of the things I needed to do felt like too much work. I could barely put one foot in front of the other, let alone figure out and manifest all the things I needed to make my house work over the winter. The prospect of living in a draughty, small, thin-shelled structure for the winter felt out-of-control, risky and unsafe.

Running scared

So, I decided to abandon my tiny house for the winter. I found a house that I could rent – a place with central heating, electricity and running water. And I set myself the task of deciding what I wanted to do about my living arrangements going forward.

I was full of doubts – I doubted that I could handle the challenges of Tiny, (semi) off-grid Living; I doubted that I was living in the right place. Part of me wanted to bug out, move to Montreal, Ireland, South America – to get away from everything. I batted around a half-a-dozen locations and ideas. Everywhere from West Dublin to Québec City to Galway to Buenos Aires.

I weighed many pros and cons.

Fear had me in its clutches. Every option I considered felt scary, unsatisfactory and just plain wrong.

Embracing love

While some of my fear is perfectly rational, the worst of it was probably a by-product of my depression. When we feel like we are all alone in the darkness, of course we are afraid. Nothing feels possible – to stay, to go, there is no good option.

Finally, I am coming out of my depression and starting to feel more like myself. Love is starting to raise her voice again. I love my friends and my community on the west bank of the LaHave. I love the beaches, the quiet, the sky. I love my house. It is adorable! Every time I go to check on it, it glows its warm heart at me. It hugs me. I feel absolutely at home.

As usual, it's not Either/Or – it's Both

I'm still scared. I'm not a particularly handy person nor, frankly, am I that interested in becoming one. This is a hard challenge to take on as a single person. I need help, and asking for help is not always my forte. And, at the same time, I want to embrace this challenge and see if I can make it work. I want to engage in the experiment of winterizing my home and living in it through an entire year.

I don't know exactly how I'm going to acheive this. I have some ideas. More will come to me. But I don't know if I will succeed. Maybe it will work for me and maybe it will not. Time will reveal the answers, but only if I try. If I don't try, I will never know.

And while fear is still a factor, I know that this decision is being made from a place of love.

PS: Jim Carey's convocation speach is worth watching in its entirety.

Depression Part 4: Waking Up Tired

A couple of months ago, I thought I was through with being depressed. I was taking good care of myself and feeling brighter.

Sadly, it is not that easy. The holidays are usually an unpleasant time for me, so I was not too surprised that I got a little down in December. But things usually improve for me after Janaury 1st. Not this year though. This January has been atypically rough.

I'm still taking good care of myself. I've been doing a food experiment (which I'll probably write about when it's complete) which has meant no wheat, corn, soy, dairy or alcohol and limited sugar. This means that I have been eating lots of healthy, unprocessed food. And I've been doing yoga almost daily and loving it.

Weepy and Sleepy

And, I'm still depressed. Weepy and sleepy, I would describe myself. I long to go to bed each day. I've been packing in the day by 8pm, sleeping for 10 hours and not wanting to get out of bed when I do wake up. Even though I'm getting more sleep that I usually get, ever, I've been waking up tired.  Some mornings, I would even say exhausted. And my mood is low. Very low. Extremely low. A mix of hopelessness, disappointment and diffuse rage.

That is absolutely not like me. I'm a morning person. To the extreme. I usually travel from zero to sixty in zero seconds flat. I wake up in fifth gear, raring to go. Bright and cheerful, a regular Little Merry Sunshine.

Disconnection

The funny thing is that my rational mind is mostly okay. I know that things are just fine in my life. I have food, shelter, loving friends and family, enjoyable work, interesting artistic projects.

Before now, I've heard and read many accounts of the disconnect between one's rational thoughts and one's mood that can happen during a major depression, but this is really the first time I have experienced it.

I see the difficulty that I might be facing in getting out of this place. If my rational mind is disconnected from my emotional state, how do I reason and talk myself out of here?

What now?

I have some hope that my upcoming busy work season will help lift me out of this state. That the endorphins inspired by pleasurable work will jumpstart my system. And I have some other things I'm planning to try – focused around managing my peri-menopausal hormonal fluctuations, which I'm sure are contributing to my depressive symptoms.

The things I'm doing and planning to do might help and they might not. 

I've set a deadline for myself. If the things I'm trying haven't made a significant difference by April 30, I step the interventions up a notch.

Wish me luck, please. 

Depression Part 2a: The Hard Way or The Easy Way?

I received a lot of lovely feedback to my post before this one. 

I was interested by the tone some of that feedback took. Probably about a quarter of the responses I received on Facebook said something along the lines of "Don't be hard on yourself if you can't maintain all of those rules (that regime/program, etc)".

I think the plan I laid out looked ambitious to people – like I might be biting off more than I can chew. And maybe it looks like I'm trying to "willpower" my way out of feeling depressed.

But I don't think that's what's going on for me. I believe I got depressed because I wasn't taking care of myself. I got myself into a situation where I felt like I was being drained and I didn't manage to keep very good boundaries or assert myself for my own wellbeing. As a result, my well ran dry. And because I don't have very good skills when it comes to self-care, I couldn't seem to get the water level to rise back up in the well. Before I realized what was going on, I was depressed and starting to feel a bit desperate.

My plan, however, is not desperate. It's just the kind of simple plan for living that many, many people enact every day without even thinking about it: moderate, healthy eating, exercise, relaxation, sane boundaries on work, etc. The trouble for me is that I don't know how to do most of these things. Before this fall, I never really stopped to consider what I needed to live a healthy life. When I felt down I just had an ice cream or worked for 14 hours and it went away. This depression has forced me to examine where I'm at and what I need.

I believe that I need to change my ways; to develop some new skills and habits.

As Maya Angelou said (and as a dear friend recently relayed to me):

“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”

EASE is the key!

The plan that I've set out mostly consists of things that make my life easier, not more difficult. For example:

• Eating less sugar/drinking no alcohol protects me from:
• unnecessary, chemically-induced highs and lows;
• masking my true feelings; and
• spending money (that I could using more productively in my life) on wine, chocolate or cola.
• Finding out if I have food sensitivities is going to keep me from feeling dragged down because  I won't be unknowingly eating food that doesn't agree with me.
• I've had a daily yoga practice in the past, so I know I can do it. Yoga is something I love and that makes me feel good. I'm pretty much going to stick to beginner classes for the foreseeable future so it will be easy and satisfying, not difficult or frustrating.

Admittedly, some of these changes are more challenging than others:

• I know putting boundaries around work is difficult for me. I toyed with the idea of a 50-hour-a-week maximum or a policy of no work on Sundays and I knew I just couldn't do it. My work comes in irregularly. It often needs to be turned around quickly. That is the nature of the beast and I accept that. However, I have promised myself that when I'm on the fence about accepting more work, I'm going to try hard to land on the "no" side of the fence more often than I have in the past.
• Walking: this might be the one thing on my list that is an actual mistake. I don't really like to walk. I think I should like it, but I'm very rarely actually in the mood to go for a walk. And the weather is going to be crappy for the next few months. Indeed, some days this week, I have not even stepped outside the house. I am outlawing shoulds. Consider this axed from the plan.
• Feeling my feelings: yes, this is a toughie for me. I often prefer to pretend my feelings aren't happening (Not eating copious amounts of sugar helps. Without that crutch to lean on, it's harder to deny my feelings).
• Think positively whenever possible: I'm trying. Admittedly, my journal is full to the brim with bitterness. I figure the best I can do for now is to let it come up and move through it as quickly as possible. And I've set aside 5 minutes before each meal to relax and focus on the positive. That is helping me to look on the bright side, and also to eat slowly and digest well.

 I didn't put anything REALLY difficult into the plan...

There's no requirement for me to eat kale or even salad. I'm not giving up sugar entirely, or meat, or carbs or fat. I never have to be hungry. My meals are still delicious. I don't have to train for a marathon. I don't have to try to find a soulmate on the Internet dating or apply for and take a square job. I don't have to make any plans for the future. I don't have to play guitar every day (unless I want to). I don't have to do anything that doesn't suit my heart, mind, body and spirit in the moment. 

How's it going so far?

So how is it going? Not bad, actually. On Monday, I felt pretty good. Yesterday and today have been okay, at best, but I'm not complaining. I'm enjoying my meals. I'm enjoying yoga practice. The positive thinking seems to be helping to ease some of the dark thoughts that were hounding me. I'm doing pretty well at staying in the present moment and feeling my feelings. I'm happy with my food choices. (That's easiest when I'm at home, but even when I went to the city on Tuesday, I managed to recognize the stupid temptations for what they were. I mean, I wouldn't even enjoy a jalapeno angus burger from McDonald's. When I saw the sign, I wanted one, but I knew not to give that desire any credence).

I'm enjoying taking it easy. I'm working, sure, but I'm also doing jigsaw puzzles and watching Downton Abbey and spending large amounts of time playing with Salinger. I am enjoying being by myself and keeping things very quiet and peaceful. There is no drama in my life right now. No stress or upset. I have released myself from expectations. I am allowing myself to recuperate.   


I know this wouldn't be the right path for everyone to try to heal from depression. As I said, I think my depression resulted directly from me not taking care of myself. So, starting to take care of myself feels like a logical first step to try to correct the situation. If this doesn't work, I have lots of options I can try, from talk therapy to pharmaceutical intervention.

For now I'm giving myself some time to see how I get along.

%$#&, I'm Depressed

Wow. Those are not words I thought I would ever say.

During my life, I've been around a lot of people who struggle with depression. I've been in relationships with them in various capacities: lover, partner, friend, family member, colleague, etc. Sometimes the depression was spoken and/or diagnosed, sometimes it was not. Sometimes the depression was masquerading as alcoholism. Sometimes it seemed like it was the other way around (I'm not entirely sure how depression and alcoholism are related, but it seems pretty clear that they are – they have far too much in common to be otherwise. A Google search for "Which comes first, depression or alcoholism", pulls up 1.2 million hits, so I'm not alone in seeing that there are connections).

I have never been very tolerant of other people's depression. It hurt me. It scared me. Especially when I was a child and adolescent. People with depression often behave in ways that I will simply categorize here as "not very nice". Mired in darkness themselves, they do and say things that are, well, dark. In order to protect myself, I adopted a stance of contempt and self-righteousness. I labelled people with depression as "drama queens", "bullies", "weaklings", "a$$holes". I decided that I was better than them and that I would never be like that. 

But wait, %&*#!—

The trouble is that depression is contagious. (A Google search pulls up more than 800,000 hits for "Is Depression Contagious?"). From my first relationship with a depressed person, it was already too late. I could fight it and I could struggle to heal. And I did. I went to therapy for years and I worked out a lot of things. But I had a big block: I would never accept that I experienced depression. Depression was always an SEP (Somebody Else's Problem). 

Eventually, there had to be a day of reckoning. In order to heal the wounds that depression has inflicted on me and the depression I've internalized, I would have to accept that depression is in me too.  
 

It happened last week. That's when I realized that I'm currently depressed. This revelation came to me at the start of my yoga class last Monday, when for no apparent reason, I began to cry. (Which reminded me of being in a yoga class years ago in which someone burst out crying and proceeded to spend most of the class having a breakdown in the middle of the room. I remember being in a silent rage about it. Didn't she have the decency to leave the room? Didn't she know that the rest of us were trying to relax? Yes, when I say I approached depression from a place of judgment and intolerance, that the kind of thing I'm talking about.)

I managed not to disrupt class last Monday. I was able to keep my tears quiet and eventually I got them under control. I feel grateful that I managed to not make a scene by leaving or by sobbing all over everybody else's yoga. But bursting into tears in a public place, even if few people noticed, forced me to admit to myself that I've been experiencing a lot of unprovoked crying lately. And a number of other tell-tale signs. 

I'm depressed? What was my first clue?

1. okay, the unprovoked crying thing is a major giveaway
2. excessive irrational irritability
3. a tendency to go back to bed in the middle of the day and stay there for a suspiciously long time
4. difficulty sleeping at night (tossing and turning or waking up at two, three or four a.m. and not being able to get back to sleep)
5. things that used to be pleasurable for me currently are not
6. I started writing my first blog post about depression eight days ago and every day until today, I've tried and failed to hit the "Publish" button. 
7. I feel listless and am having trouble getting motivated to do things (for instance, I'm moving at the end of the week and I haven't really packed anything yet)
8. I have periods of feeling totally numb and/or not present (aka: zombie mode) 
9. random pain: tummy aches, ear aches, headaches
10. feeling removed from my normal appreciation of the beauty of the world (For instance, I drove past the LaHave River valley last night as the sun was setting and it was gloriously wrapped in autumn colours. Normally, such a sight would fill me with wonder and awe. Last night, I thought, "That's pretty" and I didn't feel anything.)
11. an inability to suppress or deny the dark thoughts that I used to be able to suppress and deny
12. I hear things coming out of my mouth that I wasn't thinking and don't mean (or wasn't consciously thinking and wish I didn't mean)
13. the future feels like something to hide or run away from, not something to make plans for or embrace
14. the dirty laundry is shin deep and I don't want to do anything about it
15. I can smell something rotting in my fridge and I'm not the least bit interested in looking for it and throwing it out
16. I can smell something rotting in my car and I'm not the least bit interested in looking for it and throwing it out (I mean, seriously, my car has fruit flies and it looks like the only thing that's going to change that is a good hard frost)

Saturday was our last West Dublin Community Market of 2014 and not one, but two people made a point of saying to me (with kindness and concern) that they were glad to see me looking better – that at the last market two weeks ago they had been worried about me. And you know what – I'm not even really able to remember that market two weeks ago. Obviously, I was in zombie mode and didn't even know it. But it was apparent to others.

 

I know I'm not out of the woods yet, but I'll take it as a good sign that two smart and perceptive people think I'm "looking better" than I was two weeks ago. And my ability to push the "Publish" button seems to be returning, so I take that as a good sign, too. 

 

What now?

I take hope from simply being aware of what's going on. Given that I've been refusing to admit to any kind of depression for most of my life, I'm a bit surprised at how quickly I've been able to accept what's happening now. Obviously, something in me has grown and softened. I'm not angry at myself for being depressed. I'm feeling humbled, but not humiliated. I'm making some plans for how I'm going to work this through. And I know I have resources to turn to if those plans aren't enough.

 

I expect I'll have a lot of things to say about this experience. There will be more blog posts. Even if it takes me a while to hit the "Publish" button, I'll get them up here eventually. 

 

NOTE: by a happy(?) coincidence, Canadian singer-songwriter Amelia Curran distributed a wonderful video about depression last week. As I'm struggling to make sense of where I'm at, I have found it to be good company. It points out that 100% of Canadians are affected by the impacts of mental illness through themselves, a family member or loved one. Given that all of us have some experience with depression, it's kind of shocking that we don't often talk about it and its impacts. I am lucky to have a few dear family members and friends with whom I can talk and/or exchange letters about depression. I didn't feel much like talking this past week, though, and this video was a wonderful, safe-feeling way to be reminded that I am not alone. I encourage you to watch Amelia Curran's video at the thisvideo.ca website (or simply click play below).