I haven’t spend much time outside at night. Not this summer, with all the rain, not recently in the fall. I used to do this every weekend at least for a bit.
What changed? Some friends moved away. I liked to sit on our patio with them and drink wine and smoke and solve all the emotional and political problems of the world. Yes. After years of not smoking I would do so when I would have something to drink.
What changed? Since we decided to move I needed to get very clear on things. The only way I can that is to cut away, remove, purge. I removed alcohol and nicotine. Not that you would find me on a poster for alcohol awareness or advertisement for the patch–but everything you put in your body changes you. Â And when you are thinking hard about leaving the place you’ve lived for 10 years–well you have to be as clear headed as you possibly can be.
And that’s when I found my depression had returned, had actually been in residence for quite some time. You don’t notice it I think until it gets really bad. Or I don’t. I was trudging through my life. Work, home, child. I wasn’t enjoying much of anything. There were very few moments of sudden joy at the feel of my cat’s fur or daughter’s laugh. Everything had gone grey again.
I know I’m supposed to  hide depression, to hide what some people call a mental illness. But I don’t believe it is a mental illness. I think it is a chronic physical illness. I’m pretty smart and I’ve tried talk therapy of various kinds to pull me out of the pit, and I just can’t think my way out. I know when I started unwrapping the package that I’d layered in wrappings of alcohol, despair,cigarettes and isolation, that that had been accidentally kicked under the bed and collecting dust, everything didn’t look different, it looked right.
I haven’t told the moon that lately. I think I should go out and talk to her in the most beautiful backyard I’ve ever had before it becomes that for someone else.
