SAD

Admittedly, I suffer from SAD - Seasonal Affective Disorder.  I really started picking up on it within the last few years, in that at first I didn't really realize that I was experiencing these cycles of depression in the winter.  Once I realized it, it's a little easier to take, but still a tough time to get through every. single. year.

This year it's a little different and I'm not sure why.  Age?  Point in life?  Recent events?  Either way, it's a hard one.  I'm sick of people, I'm sick of the recession, I'm sick of bad news, I'm sick of *trying* to find a reason to be happy in my day.  And people don't see it coming, but one day you wake up and realize that the older you get, the harder it is to find the bright spots.  Right at this moment I have two friends dying in the hospital - one whose dog is at our clinic because he had no where else to go when his mom crashed this week from pancreatic cancer, and one who has advanced alzheimer's, and whose husband is a dear man who has shared his story of his 50 year marriage with me.  Hearing him cry and tell me that his beloved wife doesn't remember the last 20 years of their life together is just about all I can take in one day.

Finding focus and trying to appreciate the things that do make me smile is the only way I get through the day.  Otherwise the dreams of chucking it all and taking off in the car with Steve and my dog are about to overcome me.   Who cares about responsibilities?  Who cares about "living the American dream" when all it leads to is old age, social security and dying some miserable death?  I'm young now.  I'm able.  I don't want to be a member of the serfdom that our society is trying to hard to push upon it's own.  I want to go far away and explore and love and work at jobs that make me feel good about myself and focus on living my life instead of chasing some pipe dream of...  whatever.   I just don't want to waste my life, is what I am saying.  And lately I really feel that maybe I am.

And it's damned hard to get out of a circular rut,  in which I also am currently spinning.

Now I know that some will look at my life, my accomplishments, etc. and tell me I'm crazy.  But what they don't see is that under it all, I just want a simple life.   I don't want material things.  Right at this moment, I could even live without the internet.  I'm just tired of these things and wish I could drop out of everything for about 6 months! 

Live now.  Enjoy the days you have while you have them.  And don't buy into the bullshit of the society around you because the goal of any society is to extract labor from you for 50 years then let you die and disappear.

Definitely not Debbie Upper today.