A dear friend has blogged about depression a fair amount lately. And it has gotten me to thinking about my own struggles with depression.
Sometimes I'm just depressed because of a situation I haven't been able to reconcile.
Most of the time it is a general feeling of not belonging...anywhere. I go to work and feel I'm incompetent (it doesn't help that my new "boss" agrees with that assessment and reminds me regularly). It doesn't seem to matter how many mountains I scale and good deeds I accomplish there. I still feel like I'm pretending to be a grown-up. I'm really about 6.
I go to a gathering of friends or to someone's party and am convinced I don't belong there. They only invited me to be nice but they don't really care if I'm there or even want me to be there. I'm an embarrassment to everyone there because I just can't do or say the right things.
It isn't just once in a while. It's pretty much all the time.
One thing I do to combat this overwhelming sense of inadequacy is to knit. I knit pretty well. I'm not confident enough to make a whole sweater. Too much money for yarn to just waste it on my knitting. It probably would be too big, or too small, or disproportionate, or fall apart. But I knit smaller things because I can do them pretty well. Hats (they usually fit), mittens and socks fit me and my girlfriend. Not so much for bigger feet. I made one pair too big and I don't know about the others. I ran out of yarn so they ended up being anklets...for a guy.
I also practice a LOT of tai chi chuan. If I can't physically do it, I do it in my head. I visualize myself standing in the school room starting with the preparation and opening posture. I know a dozen or more forms made up of many postures. It's relaxing and I believe it really do know what I'm doing. It keeps me from thinking of any other things. I have students to act like they like me and I choose to believe them. My teacher seems to like me as well. That's a blessing.
Knitting and tai chi chuan help me achieve being "centered" which is a phrase I read about repeatedly in a 12-step group for "adult children" and I never understood what it meant. I think I know now.
I pray a lot, too. God, I believe, kept me from killing myself several years ago. There's no other explanation for why I didn't carry through with it. But I struggle to believe I really have any value to God. But I continue to struggle and pray and listen to the life lessons given at Eagle Brook Church.
The rest of the time, I just grit my teeth and endure.
Friday, December 02, 2011
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Dish Cloth
I created a dish cloth for an author friend of mine, Kelly McCullough, based on the web goblin, Melchior.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Arizona 2011 #2
Today we went to Tucson to the PIMA Air and Space Museum. You'll have to click on the photos to see what's in them.
I don't remember half of what the tour guides had to say because I don't have the frame of reference David does, but it was very interesting stuff.
This is a picture of about a dozen B-52's mothballed. Over the last ten years or so they've dismantled all but about 100 of these behemouths to satisfy the nuclear disarmament treaty. Sad but necessary. Good that we aren't dragging the nuclear warheads around any more. We still could, but pretty much we don't.
The story we heard about this one was someone saw it flying overhead after 2001 and called 911 to report a UFO carrying off an airplane. That's radar on top.
That's all for now.
I don't remember half of what the tour guides had to say because I don't have the frame of reference David does, but it was very interesting stuff.
This is a picture of about a dozen B-52's mothballed. Over the last ten years or so they've dismantled all but about 100 of these behemouths to satisfy the nuclear disarmament treaty. Sad but necessary. Good that we aren't dragging the nuclear warheads around any more. We still could, but pretty much we don't.
The story we heard about this one was someone saw it flying overhead after 2001 and called 911 to report a UFO carrying off an airplane. That's radar on top.
That's all for now.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Arizona 2011 #1
Wow! It's been a long time since my last entry. Sorry about that. I guess twitter and facebook have kind of replaced this blog but since not everyone is on facebook and twitter, I'll make a couple entries from Arizona.
We arrived Tuesday afternoon and drove the rental car to the motorcycle rental place where we picked up an 1800 Honda Gold Wing. We had it for 3 days and drove about 600 miles overall.
This next image is what helped make this ride more comfortable. It's a seat heater (as you can see)! The last ride we took was up to Payson and we were near 5000 ft. altitude with the temperature in the mid 40s for much of that ride. Add a strong wind and the speed of the Wing and I was on the edge of very cold.
When we got to Payson, we decided to eat some lunch at the Knotty Pine Cafe. It's a very nice little Mom 'n' Pop kind of place. When we walked in an older gentleman invited us to join him at his table. It turns out he and his wife road Gold Wings for about 15 years. It was a very pleasant meal.
The following two pictures are from the Boyce Thompson Arboretum of the Southwest. It's a huge cactus garden for the most part. Unfortunately, I had the camera set on SMALL so these are not high-res photos. Drat. But you get the idea.
This last photo was taken coming back from Payson. I held a little video camera for the ride back and ran it until the battery gave out. We'll see what David uploads to YouTube later and I'll link to it.
That's all for now.
We arrived Tuesday afternoon and drove the rental car to the motorcycle rental place where we picked up an 1800 Honda Gold Wing. We had it for 3 days and drove about 600 miles overall.
This next image is what helped make this ride more comfortable. It's a seat heater (as you can see)! The last ride we took was up to Payson and we were near 5000 ft. altitude with the temperature in the mid 40s for much of that ride. Add a strong wind and the speed of the Wing and I was on the edge of very cold.
When we got to Payson, we decided to eat some lunch at the Knotty Pine Cafe. It's a very nice little Mom 'n' Pop kind of place. When we walked in an older gentleman invited us to join him at his table. It turns out he and his wife road Gold Wings for about 15 years. It was a very pleasant meal.
The following two pictures are from the Boyce Thompson Arboretum of the Southwest. It's a huge cactus garden for the most part. Unfortunately, I had the camera set on SMALL so these are not high-res photos. Drat. But you get the idea.
This last photo was taken coming back from Payson. I held a little video camera for the ride back and ran it until the battery gave out. We'll see what David uploads to YouTube later and I'll link to it.
That's all for now.
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