Depression is a funny thing. I haven’t really felt it for a while. If anything I have struggled more with anxiety than with depression but I always know that it can come back. It barged in yesterday with its stories and exhaustion and it is lingering like an unwelcome house guest, giving no indication when it might leave. In some ways it’s ok. I know what this is. I am better at dealing with it than I used to be. It doesn’t mean I am unhappy. It means I have a brain full of stories about how I am not very good at anything, too fat to run, failing on all fronts and generally not worth bothering with. It also means I am a sort of tired that sits in your bones. I don’t want to do anything. I can’t actually rest either though because resting is just proof of my laziness. Why now? I don’t know. No obvious trigger and I am hoping that the black puppy won’t stay long. That it will come, tell its stories, realise I am not really listening and move on.
In the meantime I am slowly beginning to take down Christmas and make new memories ready for next year as I place things back in the Christmas box. I am also taking myself to places in my mind where the depression rarely follows: Disney World. Several times today I have imagined the walk from the Contemporary Resort to the Magic Kingdom. Every time the mix of memory and anticipation, because in a week’s time I will actually walk it, has brought me joy. The black puppy just sits waiting for an opportunity to remind me not to be in any photos because I’ll just look horrible and fat. It’s waiting to inform me that I won’t make it round the Dopey Challenge because I am useless and that I am probably best just staying in Florida because the work that awaits when I get back will be too hard anyway… So let’s just let it sit there, spinning it’s stories. We can tell a different one with every step we walk along this path:
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