I Can Do This One

Giant snowbanks are starting to melt. I want to feel rising hope or something akin to happiness, but that's not in the offing. I'm an early spring depression junkie.



Goddamned seasonal depression.



This time of year always finds me depressed and reflective and stressed out and trying to figure out how to exist and accept my humanity and feel okay about that. I was doing it on this same day last year, and I was doing it two years and one day ago, and I was doing it three years and thirteen days ago, and I think you get the picture.

March is a bastard every year.



I am so hard on myself when this time of year comes along, and I think that's why I have to write this entry on an annual basis. I remind myself that I'm human and that this, too, shall pass. I will move through this part and remember why I am here again, why I do what I do again, who I am again.

I am human. This will be okay.



I was asking myself questions earlier today to try to dig into a better pattern of thinking, and I asked myself this:

What if the thing I think will be my downfall is actually the key to opening up my greatest gifts?

And I knew immediately that this is true.



There was a time when I would have pointed at my alcoholism and said that it was clearly a terrible weakness that destroyed all good things for me, but I would have been wrong, because I was only in the middle of my journey with it. Coming through drinking to a place of sobriety has brought me into a greater place of power. Given the choice, I doubt I would write that part of my story the same way, because there is and was some hard stuff bound up in it, but damn it if it hasn't brought about some incomparable joy.

I beat myself up hard and long for my drinking, but now I know that I needn't have wasted the energy just to drive myself deeper under. I was on my way. I just couldn't quite see around the corner yet.



It's the same with my tendency towards heartache and sadness. I cursed it as a child. I thought it would kill me, but the truth is that it pushed me to use my words. I had to write it out, figure out my own head, to survive, and I became a writer.

My best has almost always come from my worst.



And I guess this is what March is, maybe. I go down under, below the waterline. I wait. I hide out. I drag myself around like the wet muck after a fire.

I come out more grown, though, every year. I come out deeper and stronger and more worn in.



I will come through, I will come through, I will come through.



I'm good at crossing rivers. I can do this one.

So, ask yourself the question:

What if the thing you think will be your downfall is actually the key to opening up your greatest gifts?

Big-Hairy-Deal Hard

Happy Holidays? Not for All of Us, and That's Okay.

This seasonal foofaraw — feel the peace, joy, and love, goddamnit! — does not lend itself to clear vision. It's easy to think that our inability to make a complete foundational shift during an imposed holiday is our own fault rather than it just being the reality that we are human beings whose existences don't bend around the commercial and religious calendars. It's not our fault, though. It's actually completely unreasonable to demand this of ourselves.

I'm all for reasonableness. I'm all for preserving our full range of emotions. Not a fan of Christmas? Me, either! Does gift giving feel obligatory and excessive to you? Me, too! Do family gatherings have you breaking out the anxiety meds? Of course! Christmas can shine a pretty harsh light into dark corners.

The holidays can be a hard time for some of us, being that it presents us with difficult situations regarding our relationships, finances, and basic constitutions. I'm an introvert who is given to anxiety attacks when buying gifts and who wobbles between peace/love and grief/despair, for instance. I want you to know that it's normal to be who you are, that you're not bad just because you might feel bad, and, if it helps, what's left of this holiday season is brief.

Personally, I'm dreaming of the joy of July to make it through the hard parts, and I'm embracing the love I can when I can. I'm letting myself eat and make merry when it's good, but I'm also letting myself retreat into back rooms to play Scrabble on my iPhone when it's not so good. I am deeply grateful for the love in my life and the peace I've found, but I can't pretend it's all warmth and light, and that's okay.

You and me? We're good. We really are.

From me to all of you who find this season difficult, happier holidays. I got your back.