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Self reflection of someone struggling with thoughts. |
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Some time back, I came to a realization. My writing really sucks. I was gone from this place for a really long time because of this fact. However, I miss the cathartic power of writing. I thought a long time about a blog, but then remembered that there is no better place than here for this sort of thing, and beyond a blog, maybe I could force some crappy writing of static pieces from time to time. I'm counting on anonymity here. I used to be a little bit different person, sharing more of myself than I would have liked to the whole world. However, maybe this will be a little more censored version,though it's hard for the exercise to be cathartic if it does not contain enough of my personal thoughts. So, I'm praying "anonymous" is a word that still rings true here. |
| I was sitting and watching the television one saturday morning and watching what many (my wife included) consider boring TV shows. Jerry Yarnell's "Paint This" was on my local public TV station. I had never painted anything in my life. I am 43, and this was last year, making me 42. In that time, I never had any sort of ability ti create anything graphically, save a few stick figures in grade school. However, I suddenly realized something during Jerry's instruction. "I think I might be abel to do that with some practice." I've always found painting very interested and often really have soaked in paintings, admiring the talent that creates them. I say I have never created anything graphically, but I did use to create 3d computer generated images. I mostly just saw that as a way of cheating. But now, I thought maybe I could try this. So, I enrolled my wife and I in one of these art classes they have popping up everywhere as a new fad. One of those "paint and sip" sort of classes. This one was not a very good one. There was absolutely no instruction. My wife was very upset and felt humiliated by it. I empathized with her, but I also discovered something. I actually was capable of grasping a few of the beginnings of how one might attempt to paint. So, I have been painting over the past year and a half or so. Not well, but still very much enjoying it. I don't have to tell people who belong to a writing website how healing and freeing the arts can be. This has been a new avenue for me that I never thought I could do at all. I will never be any sort of master artist. At this point, I'd love to just have something I wouldn't be embarrassed to hang on a wall. I also enjoy that it comes more easily than imersing myself into a story to write. I can accomplish more in a quicker fashion. Yesterday, I actually booked myself a private training session with Jerry Yarnell. My hero for introducing me to something I thought I could never do. yes, it was very expensive, but for a one-time experience that will (I think) really help me, it was well worth it. This is my Christmas money I saved. So, I cannot wait for May 15 to meet Jerry and learn a few things about painting. Not sure why, but in the last 2 years I have picked up painting and have picked back up my guitar after putting down when I was about 19 years old (I never practiced and therefore never really learned to play anything). My kids got me playing guitar again. One of them picked up drums and the other picked up piano. After getting to know their teachers well (a retired road musician that played with several very famous people and his wife), I decided to take lessons form him. He has become a great friend, and there are not words that can really express how special it is to be abel to play music with my kids. I even wrote a song, with my teacher's help, for my wife and we performed it for her - myself and her children - at a recital. these "recitals" are nothing like you've ever seen before. they are rock recitals with real musicianship. I'm the only adult playing (besides the teachers), and these kids are all amazing. All of that said, in these periods I have of depression, the first thing to go is the desire to do the things I love. I still love them, but suddenly it seems too difficult to practice. Everything seems laborious when looking at life through depression colored lenses. In fact, that's really what I should have entitled this journal. "Looking at Life Through Depression-Colored Lenses". |
| I used to have a lot of friends on this site. As with most things, people sort of fall away. I know I did. So, a fresh start then. I'll state this here in an open way. Something I don't tell anyone in the "real" world. Only my wife and my children really know what's up with me. I suffer from bipolar depression. I don't tell anyone because of the nasty label bipolar has become. Suddenly people use it to describe every mental illness known to mankind. It's incredibly frustrating to those of use who actually have bipolar conditions and don't use the word as a catchall for crazy. I don't like thinking of myself as crazy, and I'd really rather not explain all of this to the people who know me. Even family and close friends. Nothing they could do for me anyway. I've gone years now on medication. Something that has quite literally saved my life. I've become much better. I used to be someone I didn't like. The depression has had many side effects, including the desire and actions for many things I would never do in a clear state of mind. For several years now, I have been free of these thoughts and actions. However, more recently, in the past few weeks, a little bit of a relapse has taken place. Some of those old vanquished thoughts have re-emerged, and some of the nasty debilitating depression has come again. I've always had my periods of depression, even with the medication (that I have never quit taking). However, the last several years have seen much lighter depression. Rather than being consumed and obsessed with the idea of my own death and thinking about it literally all day every day, I would think of it only maybe once or twice a week. A significant improvement and one that allowed me to do great things. I don't want to go back. I can not go back. God save me! This bought is worse, but I pray it will end - like every cycle eventually does. Hopefully sooner rather than later. |
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