Tag Archives: depression

In the Midst of a Monday Malaise

So I ran for nine days in a row and did not run today.  I feel a little bad about that, especially since the rain that threatened never materialized.  I could have at least mowed the lawn.

Don’t mind me, I am in the midst of a Monday Malaise.  Isn’t that a nicely alliterative phrase?  Hey, that rhymed.  Perhaps I am not as brain dead as I had feared.

Who, me? Get dramatic over Monday?

Here is another image stolen from Dracula’s House of Halloween.  I wanted a change from Frankenstein’s monster saying, “No like Monday!”

Most of my day has not been particularly monstrous, but as the evening progresses I am slipping down a depressive slope.  I suppose it is nothing to worry about; we all have our ups and downs.  However, this particular down is making me SO disinclined to do any of the things I ought to be doing.

Such as making a non-whiny blog post.

Well this is the way it is.  Whatever we may have accomplished (in my case not much, but never mind that), we continue to fret over what we have left undone.  Oh, I know:  you probably checked off every item on your to-do list and even got a jump on tomorrow’s (you know who you are).

I forgot where I was going with this.  However, I see I am over 200 words.  Enough of this nonsense!  Perhaps I could find a good monster to close with.

“I still don’t know why she wanted me to be in this blog post.”

 

Sit Down Saturday?

I am having a moment.  Not a bad moment, but kind of a blah moment.  It is in fact a rather strong bout of Don’t Wanna Do Nuthin’.  So I thought to myself, well at least you can do a blog post (did not feel inclined to call myself Shirley today).

I woke up about 3:30 this morning with a bad headache.  No, I did not tie one on last night, so stop tsk-tsking at me (you know who you are).  I am out of acetaminophen but thought maybe more sleep would help with the result that I got up at six, which regular readers know is sleeping in for me.

Weekends are my days for long, challenging runs.  I had neglected to put on coffee last night so I decided to run first.  I ignored my usual weekend running plans and made up my mind to a short run.  Thirty minutes tops.  Maybe even twenty.  Or fifteen in a pinch.

It turned out to be in a pinch,  I ran for just over a mile in a little over 15 minutes (once again too lazy to get the Garmin and check.  I drank my chocolate milk recovery beverage but never got the oomph to fix breakfast till a couple of hours later.  Sorry, body.

I forgot where I was going with all this.  Lame Post Saturday?  No matter.  It is over 200 words, and my Saturday Post is done on Saturday (no matter what my WordPress timestamp may say).  If only I had a peppy picture to close with.  Maybe a monster.

You go, girl!

I stole this from Dracula’s House of Halloween, one of my favorite Facebook pages.   I did drink all the coffee, but sadly there is no longer anybody in my house to strangle me over it.  On that melancholy note,  Happy Saturday,  everyone.

 

How Much Slack Can I Get Away With?

So I let all of Saturday and a good part of Sunday slip by without making a blog post and am feeling a bit guilty about it.  The fact is, I am having the damnedest time getting myself to do anything.  I did go for two long runs this weekend.  Yesterday I did a load of laundry and washed the dishes before I petered out.  Eventually I wrote a few post cards to my usual peeps.  However, there is a lot more that I need and want to get done.  What the hell, me?

Pretty!

I threw in a picture, before I sank into a boring morass of self-recrimination.  These are my front lawn daisies from two years ago.  They are starting to die off now, and I just spent some time trying to cut them back.  This was after mowing the grass with my non-power mower and pulling up a bunch of other stuff on the side of the house.  And that was after my 50-minute run earlier.  A woman my age gets tired.  I never made it to the back yard.  In fact, a number of failing daisies remain out front.

Now I am lounged on my couch pecking in one letter at a time with the stylus on my Tablet, and sipping a glass of wine,  because I feel any effort deserves a reward.  I think I can move on to the movie watching portion of my Sunday.  Maybe I can even do a Sunday Cinema Post.  But no promises.

 

Some Semblance of a Blog Post

I’m afraid this is another post about What I Could Make A Blog Post About.  Because I’m just not feeling it this morning.  Tuesday we had the read-through for Shooting at the Grange, the murder mystery we are presenting April 29 to benefit Salisbury Grange.

Note to self: find out how to get to Salisbury Center.

Yesterday I took a half hour walk before work then went for a pretty good run after.  Pedestrian Posts and Running Commentary are always fun.  Later I took an unexpected trip to Frankfort, NY, to Fratello’s Pizzeria, to hear Phil Arcuri, one of my favorite local musicians.

From my Media Library.

I confess to feeling a bit down.  I took another half hour walk this morning, because I read somewhere that a half hour was the equivalent of taking 25 or 50 mg of Zoloft (I forget which).  I almost cut the walk short, because I seem to have done something to my hip again.  I said to myself, What do you think, something magic is going to happen if you walk for 30 minutes?  Well, nothing magic happened, but I am sure 30 minutes of walking burns more calories than walking for 20, that stands to reason.

So this has been my update, and I am going to call it a Wuss-out Wednesday.  I need to get on with my Thursday.

 

Welcome To My Quagmire

Sometimes I have a To Hell With It Day on Monday.  OK, most weeks I do. I often feel that if I just get through Monday, I have done enough.  That is why I usually do a Monstrous Monday Post.  It is all I want to manage.  And some Mondays, I just go to bed and leave it for Tuesday.

I am trying not to do that today.  I already sloughed off fixing my lunch till tomorrow.    I almost sloughed off putting out garbage till next week but at the last minute put out what little I have.  Full disclosure: I felt self-conscious about being the only house on the block without containers out front.  Then I felt ridiculous for being self-conscious about such a thing.  For heavens’ sake, why should I care what anybody thinks about me putting out garbage every other week?   Additionally, why should I flatter myself that anybody even notices? What do I think they say? “That crazy old lady in the yellow  house, she doesn’t even put out garbage every week. Does she just let it pile up in her kitchen?  Eeww!”

A neighbor giving me the side-eye because of my garbage habits.

I thought I would throw in a picture, to get myself out of the quagmire of the previous paragraph.  That is a good word: quagmire.  I think it describes many of my blog posts and much of my life.  At least my mind, much of the time.

I seem to have lost my head.

I was looking for a suitably quagmirish photo but could not find one.  I settle for Joan Crawford in StraitJacket. “She’s insane! She’s insane!”  I just don’t imagine I’m that bad.

Side note:  I am actually finishing and posting this early Tuesday morning.  I add this in the interests of accuracy.

 

I Hate Late

I read a quote from a writer, I forget who or even the whole quote, but it started, “One must be pitiless in the matter of mood…”

He is right, of course.  But it doesn’t really help me right now.  I am sitting here with my Tablet (the laptop-come-dining-room-tabletop is dying a slow painful death, as it gets slower and more painful to do anything on it), feeling it would be a good idea to make Saturday’s blog post even at this late hour.  Yet I also feel paralyzed by indecision and resistance.

I’m also a little hungry, although I did have some scrambled eggs earlier.

Lately I feel overwhelmed by all I need and want to do, with the vicious circle result that I do not do any of it.  Well, sometimes I do some of it.  For example, yesterday I worked on paying bills.  This is one chore my late husband Steve always did, and I was SO grateful that he did.  So naturally,  I am not only not very good at it, it is doubly painful, because it emphasizes once again that Steve is not here.

I guess this is another thing to be pitiless about.  I keep telling myself I have to learn to be alone.  So yesterday I sat down with the checkbook and a stack of bills and told myself, “Just pay one bill.”  This was me applying my method of Just Do One Thing.  I started by putting the bills in order of due date.  I hate to be late (blog posts notwithstanding).

Somewhere in the midst paying one bill online, one by phone, and writing a couple of checks, I felt a surge of… not quite happiness, but of not depression.  “I’m doing this,”  I thought.  Of course I have a lot more to do, but maybe I will be able to do it.

Hmmm… I guess the quote I referenced earlier did help me, because, look, I have blogged over 300 words.  I say “blogged” instead of “written” in deference to the Truman Capote line, “That’s not writing, that’s typing.”  Do you suppose if he were still around, he would sniff at my blog, “That’s not writing, that’s pecking in one letter at a time with the stylus”?

 

Saturday? Sunday? Just Another Blog Post

It is a well known fact that I have never, at any point in my life, for one minute, ever had my act together.  It seems unlikely that I will achieve such a status at this late stage, even if I were to make the attempt.  Full disclosure:  I tend not to try.  At worst,  I survey the damage and make embarrassing weepy noises.  At best, I just drive on.  I am hoping for a drive on day today.

I am lounged on my couch, pecking in one letter at a time with the stylus on my Tablet, trying to remember why I did not make my Saturday blog post on Saturday.  I am further wondering if I can count this post for both Saturday and Sunday.  Would that be cheating?  I do not approve of cheating, even if it is on my own rules for me.  Still, one resorts to  these measures on occasion.

It has not been a bad weekend so far.  I went for good runs both yesterday and today, going further than last weekend and even including a few hills.  I petted a couple dogs today.

The sign is looking more faded now, and the trees in the background have no leaves.

I ran by this DO NOT ENTER sign yesterday.  Regular readers know I love to enter when it says not to.

That car wasn’t there today.

I ran by the post office today.  I walked there yesterday to mail my post cards and a letter.

I keep hoping for some of those endorphins to kick in.  One reason I try to be vigilant about running and walking is for the mental health benefits.  However, I don’t suppose anything will be a miracle cure.  Again I ask, why can’t I have a miracle cure?

And again I answer myself, never mind why, you can’t and that’s that.  However, it seems I can make a blog post.  It may be a late, foolish blog post, but what can you expect from someone who emphatically does not have her act together?

 

Blog After Run, Such As It Was

As often happens, I neglected to make my Saturday blog post on Saturday.  This morning I thought to make it first thing, but after I had futzed about (holy crap, autocorrect recognized “futzed” as a word!) with coffee and Facebook (judge me if you will, I find Facebook sometimes comforting these days), I really felt more like running than blogging.  It was almost light out.  I decided to go for it.  For one reason, I have been trying to self-medicate my depression with exercise.  For another, the Boilermaker 15K is coming up.  Eventually.

Holy crap, it was cold!  Never mind, I told myself.  You’ll warm up as you go.  Ignoring the logical part of my brain that said my fingers and face traditionally do not warm up, I kept going.

More problematic was the ice.  There were patches of ice EVERYWHERE!  Some of it was insidiously hard to see.  I found a nice bare strip down the center of most roads I went on, but clearly it is a mistake to run down the center of, say German Street, which I happened to be on.  Well, maybe there wouldn’t be much traffic.  In fact there was not a lot, but it only takes one car to obliterate one middle-aged lady runner.  I sprinted for Prospect Street as I heard then saw one approach.

I quickly decided a long-ish run such as I had enjoyed yesterday was not necessary.  15 minutes would be OK, I told myself.  Even at my cautious shuffle, that would be at least a mile.  As it happened, I went for 20 minutes, just under a mile and a half.

As I went, I did not observe much, since I was mainly keeping my eyes on the road.  Therefore I did not enjoy the benefits of distraction which running outdoors usually brings.  Never mind.  We all know some runs are better than others.  The point is, I ran.  And now I have blogged.  Bring on the rest of the day!

 

Blog Before Run, Or Am I Too Lame?

Last week I hoped I was ushering in a new era of Not Late Lame Post Friday posts.  Alas, it was not to be.  Here it is Saturday morning, and I sit on my couch (lounge, really), listening to what I think is some kind of pigeon (maybe a mourning dove? It sounds pretty sad) and wishing I was already out running. One thing I love is running or walking in the morning and hearing the birds sing (or is it a morning dove with no emotion attributed?  I don’t know from birds).

One reason I am blogging before my run is that I am waiting for it to be light out.  I just can’t trust the sidewalks and roads this time of year.  I have wiped out on the ice too many times this year just walking (one hideous incident on my uneven concrete front steps).  I emphatically do not want to do it while running.  At my age I could break a hip.  Well, maybe not a hip, but something.  At least I would bruise my body and damage my fragile self-esteem.

My day stretches before me in a fairly threatening fashion.  That run to take, post cards to write, a house to clean, a murder mystery to write AND this afternoon auditions for murder mystery actors.  It is a general audition;  I want to develop a pool of actors to draw from as murder mysteries arise to be cast.

Now I feel threatened, because there is a something inside me (my depression?  the aforementioned fragile self-esteem?) strenuously insisting that I CANNOT POSSIBLY do a murder mystery at this time.  I MIGHT be able to write it (low self-esteem aside, I rarely admit to being unable to write something) (yes, yes, there are times when I say I CAN’T write a blog post, but I just mean I can’t write it right now).  But print it out, get a cast, schedule and go to rehearsals…

What am I saying?  Of course I can do all that!  The voices in my head are full of beans!

Talked myself right into that, didn’t I?  Guess I’ll go for my run now.

For local readers interested in theatre, auditions are today, March 18, at 1 p.m. at Ilion Little Theatre,  13 Remington Ave., Ilion, NY.  For more information,  you can visit the theatre’s Facebook page.

 

 

Help from Pizza and a Friend

I was going to just give up and declare this week Late Post Week when I noticed how low the battery on my phone is. Will I have time to plug it in and get it to 100 percent in AND be able to make a blog post in the morning? I suppose a little suspense will add interest to my day.

Regular readers (I think I still have some) may be wondering why I did not go to the library and make my blog post, as I spoke of doing this morning (when I made yesterday’s post). It is too long and whiny a story for me to share. Also, I don’t come out of it looking very good.

So I guess this is a true Wuss-out Wednesday Post. Hmm… Maybe I could yet salvage something.

At one point earlier this evening I texted my friend Kim and told her I was having a HORRIBLE day (I daresay I was indulging in hyperbole). She suggested ordering food and watching a movie. Brilliant!

While she got ready to come over, I called Salvatore’s Pizzeria in Herkimer and ordered a cheese pizza and chicken wings Siciliano. When Kim arrived, we popped in “Clue: The Movie” (I put it in quotation marks because I do not know how to do italics on my phone). I craved the silliness factor of the movie.

I’ll be honest: The evening was not a miraculous cure-all. Why can’t I have a miraculous cure-all? No matter. I can’t and that’s all. I was feeling better after good food, a few laughs, and most of all time with a friend.

Full disclosure:. Kim was not the only one I reached out to. I also called my parents for some good advice and got it as usual. Additionally I called the Veteran’s Crisis Hotline and am on my way to getting more help. I mention the last to add my little bit to erasing the stigma attached to needing help with our mental health.

And I guess the stigma does exist, because I am quite hesitant now to publish this post. People I know may read it! Then again, why worry? In the first place, my blog is probably not as widely read as all that. In the second place, a lot of my friends and family would probably say, “Oh Cindy, we knew you needed help!”