All the Little Things

Oddly enough, it takes very little to make me smile these days. I suppose that when every major aspect of your life goes so completely wrong, the little things are all you have left. There are many things I used to take for granted, things that I never acknowledged in any significant way for the happiness they brought to my life. But now, those days are over.

The last seven months have taken me to depths of despair I never knew existed, depths I’m not yet nearly far enough away from. That sounds overly dramatic, doesn’t it? Well, dramatic or no, it’s the truth. It feels as though I have become the universe’s very own punching bag, particularly when the remaining stable areas of my life are picked off one by one like some sort of cosmic game of Duck Hunt (which has happened more than once in the last month). So, the big things have become, to understate, unreliable sources of happiness.

Fine. Screw the big things. Life isn’t about the big things, anyway, is it? This jumbled string of minutes that makes up our days is full of small moments and things, seemingly insignificant, that create the massive whole we’re all a part of. And if I am going to have any hope of getting through this disaster that stubbornly insists on not ending, I no longer have the luxury of ignoring them. For example:

~ A sunny day. It was unseasonably gorgeous outside today, and I was so grateful for the opportunity to put my to-do list on hold, grab a book, and sit outside to enjoy it.

~ Chocolate chip cookies made from scratch. Chewy, just the way I like them, and enough of a stockpile to get me through a rough week.

~ A good TV show. There’s nothing like being able to escape into another world for an hour or so, to take a temporary break from reality.

~ Planners. I love whoever invented the planner. I would never get anything done if it weren’t for mine!

~ Candlelight. Such a small thing, so easily accessed, and it never fails to soothe me.

~ A good pair of running shoes. Working out my troubles while pounding the pavement has gotten me through more than one impossible day.

~ Granny Smith apples. One of my favorite fruits, and my current snack of choice. Especially with some salt sprinkled on the slices.

~ A favorite book. Like old friends, and even better than a good show, I have a few beloved works that I turn to whenever I really need to get out of my head. They never let me down.

~ Flip-flops. That’s right, flip-flops. They signal warm weather, and it makes me incredibly happy to be able to bust them out of their winter hibernation.

Are these large, life-altering things? No. Do they completely balance out the misery I sometimes feel smothered in? Not really. But they do shine tiny beams of light through the darkness. And if I pay close enough attention to the light, sometimes I can forget the darkness for a little bit. It’s a lesson I’m getting better and better at adhering to, and one that I plan to take with me and hold close no matter what the future holds. Because I have found that there really is value in occasionally stopping to smell the roses.

Lesson of the Day: Sometimes, it’s the small things in life that make life worth living.

Sorting Out My Priorities

It has been, to put it mildly, a rough few weeks. A lot of that waiting I talked about a few posts ago took a giant step forward, and instead of being relieved I found myself relapsing into a depressive episode on a level I honestly thought I was beyond. So, I can now personally attest to another truth about depression: it is entirely possible to experience a relapse. (For more information on depression, see my January 28, 2010 post, Taking Down Depression.) No wonder it’s known to be such an insidious illness.

At any rate, there has been a lot of “just making it through” going on, and that hasn’t left me with either the energy or desire for much of anything else. The tactics I’ve been using for the last six months to keep my head on straight aren’t as effective as they used to be. My patience for all this *waves arms around wildly* is waning. It’s time to step up The Reinvention Project. I’ve decided to try to think a bit further into the future; to look to the ever-nebulous “other side” I will supposedly come out on when everything making my life a whirlwind of discontent finally resolves itself. If I can visualize this new life of mine, maybe it will be easier to hold out for it. To that end, I decided to make a list.

I jumped on to http://www.tadalist.com/, a lovely website devoted to list-making, and created the following:

Adventures for 2010
~ hot air balloon ride
~ skydiving on my birthday
~ hiking to waterfalls in the spring
~ run three 5Ks
~ join a writers group

The first three items are things I’ve been dying to do for years, and the opportunities just didn’t present themselves in my old life (I have a specific state park in mind for the hiking). The last two items are geared towards personal improvement for the benefit of my new life. The important thing about this list is that each thing is completely do-able this year. Only the first two items cost any significant amount of money, and neither cost is prohibitive.

One of the facets of my new life that I’m most eager to incorporate is not waiting so long to do the things I truly want to do. One of the hard lessons I’ve learned is that life is unpredictable. You can have it all planned out one day, and not know which way is up the next. Life itself will get in the way of you doing any actual living if you let it. As I am rebuilding from the ground up, now seems like the perfect time to make sure that doesn’t happen anymore. The things I want to do, the adventures I want to have, are going to take a much higher priority in my new life. That knowledge is getting me through when other distractions fail.

The above list-in-progress will seem inane to most people, I imagine. Plenty of people couldn’t care less about waterfalls, and relatively few have the urge to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. But are you prepared to deny that you have such a list in the back of your mind? If you sat down right now with a pen and paper, what small things have you been dying to do, or try, or see, that you keep putting off? Forget about expensive dream vacations (Rome is on my personal long-term wish list) or the desire to change careers. Think smaller. Is there a play you want to see? A favorite band in concert? Have you always wanted to try a particular craft? Maybe you have a secret desire to try an online computer game. Or go to a tasting at a local winery.

You think about these things from time to time, and each time you think to yourself, “Someday soon I’m actually going to make this happen. Maybe next month. Maybe next year.” But soon never seems to arrive, and the months pass, and the years pass, and life gets in the way of all your best intentions. It happens to us all. My list has been with me for years. But you know what? Six months ago that list was longer. I’ve already begun to check things off. And each checkmark is another completion of something important to me. Something that makes my life richer, more colorful. And isn’t that the point of life, after all? To live it?

Lesson of the Day: Life is for living. Make it happen.

Hoping for the Best, Preparing for the Worst

My life over the last five months has seemed like an absurd string of worst-case scenarios. As a result, I now find myself rewired to immediately come up with the worst possible outcome for a given situation. While this might not seem like the best disposition for someone currently prone to episodes of depression, I find it serving a constructive purpose in spite of the less pleasant effects of raising my blood pressure and making me cry at random intervals.

I can prepare! I can come up with Plan B and C and go on down the line for as long as my pessimism (or perhaps just realism at this point) holds out. Now that I have no naïve illusions that the worst can’t possibly happen to me, I can get down to the business of making sure the worst doesn’t carve another pound of sanity from my psyche if it does come to pass.

Now if that doesn’t demonstrate my mad silver-lining-finding skills, I don’t know what does.

Lesson of the Day: Hope for peace, but wear your flak jacket!

When 1 Really IS the Loneliest Number

I have never minded being alone.

I don’t mean that I’m anti-social or that I prefer to be alone, because have plenty of friends and I rarely turn down the opportunity to hang out with other people. I simply mean that when a situation plays out so that I’m by myself, I’m not bothered by it. This has come in handy in recent months, as I am now on my own the majority of the time. Having only myself for consistent company has not kept me from going out to eat, or watching movies, or heading out on multi-day road trips—all things I have done quite successfully, alone, over the last five months.

In fact, being alone has its advantages—advantages I have pointed out to myself on more than one occasion as a temporary remedy for my inevitable loneliness. There’s no arguing over what to eat, or when. There are no fights about what movie to see. Everything in the house is mine, set up the way I want it and situated to make my life more comfortable. If I want to go out, I go out. No waiting for someone else to get ready, and no discussions about it. If I want to stay in, I stay in. My free time is my own. No one hassles me about how they think I should be spending it. I don’t have to take anyone else into consideration when I make decisions, something that has greatly simplified my world. Yes, there are indeed advantages to being the number one person in my life.

That being said, there are times when being alone flat-out sucks. This suckiness is, perhaps, magnified by the fact that I didn’t choose to be alone, but rather had all this aloneness thrust upon me against my will. (This is also why I spend so much time coming up with reasons why being alone doesn’t suck in the first place.) Whatever the case, there was a lot of non-happy alone time this weekend, because I was sick. Not just “oh, I’m not feeling all that hot” sick, but “I went to the doctor and came back with multiple prescription medications” sick. I was flat on my back for three days. And I was alone. And it sucked royally.

There was no one to get me a glass of water. No one to pick up my prescriptions from the pharmacy for me. No one to make me soup. No one to grab an extra blanket for me when my fever gave me chills. The house didn’t get cleaned. Errands didn’t get run. Studying didn’t get done. On the other hand, in spite of how crappy I felt, the animals needed to be looked after, meals needed tending, mail needed to be brought in (but only because I was waiting for something important; otherwise that wouldn’t have gotten done, either). It was awful, misery on top of misery and all I could think about was how much I really, really didn’t want to be alone. If I didn’t have the cats (who, bless their little feline hearts, could tell I wasn’t feeling well and curled up with me for all three days to keep me company), I might have spun into a real funk over the whole thing.

As it stands, I’m exhausted today, partly from being sick and unable to lie down (I have a lot of responsibilities stacked up on Mondays) but partly from the emotional toll this weekend took on me. This is one problem for which there is no solution. I am alone, and sometimes it is going to suck, and there’s nothing to be done about it. I just have to get used to it as one of the more unpleasant aspects of my new life. I just wish this particular life lesson had waited until I was something other than miserable and drugged to the gills. Ugh.

Lesson of the Day: Sometimes, it’s just gonna suck.

How Valentine's Day Got My Groove Back

I have been feeling decidedly drifty the last couple of weeks. This driftiness has manifested in all sorts of ways: simple errands not getting done even though I write them in my planner day after day, hours going by that I seem to miss entirely, cleaning going by the wayside (a big thing for me, as I’m a bit of a neat freak), even this blog being neglected.

Upon reflection, I can come up with at least a partial picture of why this has happened. First, there are several key decisions that need to be made in various areas of my life in order for me to begin moving on. Unfortunately, all those decisions are in other peoples’ hands now, as I have done everything I can on my end, and there is a lot of waiting happening. Second, I am tentatively beginning to feel as if I am over the absolute worst of the effects of my life-turned-disaster. It has been roughly five months since my world fell apart in a short 24 hours, and in those five months I have wrangled myself through hell and am beginning to see the light. Someone who has a knack for analogy gave me a particularly apt one:

It’s like I’m halfway across a desert. When I began my trek, five months ago, I was unsure that I would survive. I didn’t know if there would be food, or water, or any of the things I would need to make it to the other side. Nevertheless, having no other choice, I took my first steps and began my journey. Now, I am smack in the middle. I have found reliable sources of food and water, and I am more certain each day of my eventual success in crossing the desert. However, knowing that there is, in fact, an end is not the same as being able to see the end. I have come too far to turn back, so my only option remains forward movement. I know there will come a day when I take my final steps off the hot sand and into greener country, but that knowledge only lessens the frustrations—it certainly doesn’t get rid of them completely, and there are still days when I just find a cave and wait out the day, unwilling to travel any further for awhile.

Poetic, no?

However, I found a driftiness remedy in the most unlikely of places: Valentine’s Day. This was, as far as I was concerned, yet another holiday to drag through for the first time since everything happened. I was considering, especially given my recent mood, a long bout of wallowing followed by gazing with glassy eyes at the TV until the clock hit midnight and I could breathe a sigh of relief that the damn day was finally over.

But, in case you haven’t yet gathered, that’s not really my style. Why, I asked myself, should I be forced to hide from this day? It’s a day about love. Sure, it’s more about romantic love than anything else I suppose, but how many people every year loathe this day for that very reason? Screw romantic love’s exclusive rights on February 14. It’s likely that I won’t be applying that particular connotation to Valentine’s Day again for quite some time, but I saw no need to miss out because of a cruel twist of fate. So, I plotted to make this day about different kinds of love, instead.

Yesterday, I bought myself flowers. Not a Valentine’s Day bouquet (truth be told, I don’t even like roses), but one I made myself of beautiful yellow carnations (my favorite flower) with fiery orange petal tips and irises (a flower in my favorite color). Everything about these flowers is positively cheery, and they make me smile every time I glance over at them in my favorite vase. I also bought myself a bag of Reese’s peanut butter cups (one of my favorite candies) and placed them in the fridge (because they’re always better cold) in preparation for today. Finally, I returned an email I’d gotten from the shelter I adopted my cats from, saying that I would be happy to volunteer at their adoption event on Valentine’s Day.

Fast-forward to today. I woke up and drove to the shelter, wrangled a couple of canines into my SUV, and hauled them to the local PetSmart where I and two other volunteers spent the day trying to convince people to adopt a dog. I was at it from 9:30 to 3:30, and we did in fact manage to get one of the four dogs with us adopted on top of drumming up a lot of interest for the shelter. This was me, celebrating love: the love of the other living things I share this planet with. I felt good about getting a puppy a new home, spent the day with some wonderful animals, and found a couple of new friends in my fellow volunteers.

Volunteering complete, I came home and indulged in some spa products I received for Christmas. Then I got dressed up, took myself out for sushi, and went to see a movie (Wolfman, which can in no way be construed as a romantic flick). Finally, I returned home tonight, pulled out those delectable Reese’s, and happily munched away on my dessert while watching the Olympics. All this was me, celebrating love: the love and respect I have for myself, for what I’ve been through, and for recognizing that I deserve to be taken care of—even if I’m the one doing the caring right now.

So, I am chalking this day up in the WIN column. It could have been misery of epic proportions. It wasn’t. Would it have been nice to have someone to share it with? Of course, especially since until this year I have always has someone to share the day with. Still, it was a truly lovely holiday, one that left me satisfied and tired at the end, one where I did not wallow even a tiny bit, one where I finally rose above the lethargy that has had me in its grip for the last two weeks.

Lesson of the Day: The day is what you make of it!

How to Stave off Insanity in 2 Easy Steps

There’s a quote contributed to R.D. Lang that suggests, “Insanity—a perfectly rational adjustment to the insane world.” This wisdom has seemed, more often than not in recent months, completely reasonable to me. However, insanity comes with all sorts of downfalls, not the least of which is the inability to properly function in said insane world. So, I have refined a two-step plan guaranteed to stave off unwanted insanity (or your money back for asylum fees!):

Step 1: Figure out what keeps you sane.
Step 2: Make damn sure you have access to whatever you decide in Step 1.

I have had to compromise, cut back, give up, and let go quite a bit recently. Sometimes it’s been fairly tolerable. More often…well, not so much. But scattered around in the remains of my life have been beacons to guide me back to the path of sanity when the road gets a bit muddied. All I have to do is recognize them, and then make sure I keep them with me. Simple.

Right.

So, what have I come up with? What constitutes “sanity-preserving?” Sometimes it’s something that makes me smile when I’d rather cry. Sometimes it’s something capable of distracting me from unpleasant thoughts. Maybe I need to be calmed down, or need an excuse to let out some aggression. Whatever it is, I’ve gotten very good at paying attention to what I need, and then supplying myself with the remedies.

Need a surefire way to occupy my mind with something other than what’s going on in my life? School to the rescue! Nothing clears the mind like studying Art of the Novel. Need to laugh? Bring on Jon Stewart. Need an excuse to cry without it feeling random and uncontrolled? I recently went to see Extraordinary Measures. Nothing lets loose the waterworks like Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser trying to save children from an incurable disease (bonus points for being based on a true story!). Books. Movies. Writing. The occasional trip to Cold Stone Creamery. The point is, I have figured out how to get what I need to push back from the insanity table. So far, so good.

Lesson of the Day: Insanity can suck it.

Pet Therapy

There’s nothing quite like owning a pet. First, there’s a level of unconditional love that you could never get from another human. Then there’s the instant calm that results simply from petting or playing with a pet. And let’s not forget the addition of another warm body in the house, one you can talk to and get the sense that it’s listening so that you never feel like you’re holding a conversation with yourself. All in all, pets are fantastic.

I’ve been going back and forth about adopting a pet for the last few months. I already have a rabbit, but he’s not the most interactive animal, and I’ve been feeling the need for another, more responsive body in the house now that I’m on my own. Growing up I had a dog, so I was looking at dogs as primary candidates, but I finally settled on a cat. One cat, however, turned into two, and this weekend I adopted two adults (one 2 years old and one 11 years old—a senior cat!) from a local animal shelter.

I can already feel the difference. I’m no longer alone! No, I don’t have another human in the house, but having two animals running around at all hours is getting the job done just fine. One of the cats is also turning out to be a definite lap cat, and she lies with me while I study. Both cats are content to lounge around the living room and watch TV with me, and neither seems to mind hanging out on her own when I leave for class or go out to run errands. Without fail, though, at least one of them greets me at the door when I get home.

If you have the means, and the desire, adopting a pet of any kind can be a very rewarding experience. And it doesn’t have to be the traditional cat or dog, either. I have a friend who recently adopted a hedgehog, and is quite thrilled with his new companion. I know people who are content to take the look-don’t-touch approach with fish. One friend in particular can’t seem to get enough of animals, and has a dog, a turtle, two frogs, a tank of fish, and a hamster. The point is, there’s an animal for everyone. And whether you’re beginning a new phase is your life, or have been putting off getting a pet even though you really want one, why not take the plunge? Of course, there are several things to consider:

• Finances: Some animals are more expensive than others. For example, my two cats require yearly vet appointments at the least for shots and such, but my rabbit hasn’t been to the vet in years, and won’t need to go unless he’s sick. There’s also food, toys, bedding, and species-specific accessories to take into consideration. Definitely do your research!
• Time: If you’re out of the house for 10 hours a day, a dog is probably not for you because you have to factor in letting one outside several times a day. A cat, however, is perfectly fine on its own for longer stretches of time (yay litterbox!). Caged animals work much the same way, with varying degrees of attention needed. No matter what the animal, are you willing to devote the time necessary to clean up after it, feed it, and play with it? Some people forget that a pet is a living thing completely dependent on you for its survival and well-being. If you’re not willing to make the effort, a pet is not for you!
• Space: Do you live in an apartment? You should probably skip the Great Dane. Animals come in all shapes and sizes, and you really just have to narrow down what size will work within the space you have available.
• Other members of the household: Do you have children? Other pets? An allergy-prone spouse? Many animal shelters now require every member of the family (human and non-human alike) to meet a potential adoptee to see if everyone will get along. Make sure everyone is in agreement and understands the responsibilities involved. And make sure any existing pets will get along with the new pet. Hunting breeds were out of my dog search immediately, as I could imagine exactly how that introduction to my rabbit would go!
• Shelter or pet store? I am a strong advocate of adopting from a shelter. If you’re not sure where to begin a search, try here. This site will give you access to the “inventories” of all the shelters in your area, and give you the links to those shelters so you can check out their websites directly and get info on their adoption policies.

Pets place a lot of responsibility on their human owners, but the love and devotion they give back is well worth it. There’s a reason why hospitals have programs that allow specially trained animals to visit patients. It’s no surprise that dogs are entrusted with the care of humans who need help (seeing-eye dogs) and humans in general (police dogs). Don’t have the inclination to take on the responsibility but would still like to reap the benefits? Volunteer at your local animal shelter. Shelters are mostly non-profit organizations that exist at the mercy of a huge and ever-changing team of volunteers. They always need people to pet cats and walk dogs—seriously, I’ve done both—and would be thrilled to have you come in pretty much any time that works with your schedule.

Lesson of the Day: Jump on the animal-loving bandwagon—it’s all warm and fuzzy!