I really need to restart this blog.

Like, seriously.

Blessing

Ultraviolet image of the Cygnus Loop Nebula
by NASA/JPL-Caltech [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I ran across this poem recently.  It feels appropriate.  Maybe it's a bit of synchronicity.  Beannacht means "blessing" in Irish. ~AJ

Beannacht

On the day when
 The weight deadens
 On your shoulders
 And you stumble,
 May the clay dance
 To balance you.

And when your eyes
 Freeze behind
 The grey window
 And the ghost of loss
 Gets into you,
 May a flock of colours,
 Indigo, red, green
 And azure blue,
 Come to awaken in you
 A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
 In the currach of thought
 And a stain of ocean
 Blackens beneath you,
 May there come across the waters
 A path of yellow moonlight
 To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
 May the clarity of light be yours,
 May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
 May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
 Wind work these words
 Of love around you,
 An invisible cloak
 To mind your life.

by John O'Donohue

Meaning . . . Less

Revisiting the Veil Nebula. ESA/Hubble [CC BY 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons
This image shows a small section of the Veil Nebula, as it was observed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.  This section of the outer shell of the famous supernova remnant is a region known as NGC 6960 or—more colloquially—the Witch's Broom Nebula. (Info copied from Wikimedia Commons, linked above).  Isn't it beautiful?

This winter has been hard.  Sometime around the beginning of December I hit a major downswing with my depression which I've not been able to claw my way out of yet.  It's annoying.  And it's so hard to deal with anything, do anything at times like this.  So that even though I know ways to deal, I can't freaking deal.  

What's left is to actually fucking deal.

Like I said, I know the ways to cope, to deal, to lift myself out of this hole, it's just so hard to get motivated.  Then you spiral . . . 

I need to recalibrate my brain.

So these are things help that I'm currently not doing because of weird brain stuff, but I do keep telling myself that I need to do them, and I have every expectation that I will be doing them at some point in the very near future:

• Sleep—my sleep schedule is all wonky, it has been for years.  If I can get myself on at least a semi-normal sleep schedule I will feel better.
• Drink more water—I let myself dehydrate when I get like this.  I forget to drink.  I need to remember to drink.  If I drink plenty of water I will feel better.
• Eat—when I'm in one of my slumps I am not consistent in my eating habits.  I may go all day without eating and then binge at night, or I may graze continuously throughout the day.  There are only two consistencies in my diet and those are overeating, and eating "foods" with absolutely no nutritional value.  I need to be more consistent with my schedule for eating and I need to eat actual food.  If I do this, I will feel better.
• Go outside—I haven't actually spent time outside since I quite smoking.  I need the sunlight.  I need the air.  I need the dirt.  I need the trees.  If I start spending more time outside, in the sunlight, I will feel better.
• Move—when I'm like this, I will sometimes only get out of bed to get food and go to the restroom.  I'll just lie in bed and and watch Netflix or Amazon Prime or DVDs on my computer.  If I get up, stretch, exercise, move around I will feel better.
• Take my meds—so, a little over a year ago I started a daily regimen of St. John's Wort.  It helped.  I had more energy, a more hopeful outlook.  I felt like I was healing.  In September I had to stop taking it while I was sick, so it wouldn't interfere with my antibiotics.  Since then, my regimen has kind of fallen apart.  I need to get back to it.  If I take my meds on a regular basis I will feel better.
• Socialize—I have a tendency to isolate myself anyway, but I practically become a hermit when I'm depressed.  If I make an effort to see and talk to people I like I will feel better.
• Interrupt—I get trapped on these loops of negative thoughts that end up reinforcing all the terrible habits I fall into when I get depressed.  In theory, I know how to interrupt these loops, these thoughts.  In theory, I can redirect myself towards something more useful than negative thought.  If I redirect my thinking towards positive thoughts I will feel better.
• Meditate—this is to train my brain to get better at interrupting my negative thoughts and finding a bit of peace within myself.  If I regularly meditate I will feel better.

If I do these things I will feel better.  I will feel better.  I will feel better.