Depression

Stress pounded down on me for a solid two weeks in the month of April.  With the stress, frustration and depression followed in the stress's wake.  I was left in a state of only wanting to read or watch television.  I allowed myself to do just that for a day.  As time continued on, I picked an art project to work on and began my morning journal after taking a few days off.

I worked my depression to do list.  Yep, I do have a list.  However, before I even hit the list, I allow myself to stop all of the items on my regular daily tasks.  That's right, I quite working on editing, publishing, and writing.  I give myself a break.  I took mental health days.  Once those passed, I slowly added fun things into my life.  What is on my list?  Music, reading (granted I never stop reading, but I add more types of things to read), paint, scrapbook, garden, get out and about, clean house (it is cathartic), and photography.

During this round of the doldrums, I worked on a sign for my steampunk garden.  I believe it turned out really cute.  I am excited to put it in the garden though the garden isn't even ready for plants, let alone a sign!

Gardening has been my other project.  Though during this bout of depression, I have related to Job from the Old Testament.  The only problem is I don't have the patience of Job in the area of gardening.  When I went shopping the other day at Costco, I spontaneously bought some flowers: 8 hostas, 3 bleeding hearts, 5 astibles, and 12 lily of the valley.  All of these plants only live in the shade.  Well, my one and only shade garden is small and can't hold this many plants.  Brilliant!  Not!!!  My steampunk garden will hold all of them, but I still need to get the retaining wall built and decent soil added.  Good grief.  So, what did I do?  I stuffed all but 5 hostas and 2 astibles in the old garden.  These I put in the new garden.  If any of the plants survive, I will have to reorganize next spring.  I do cause a lot of work for myself!

My depression isn't completely gone.  Because of the things that happened in April, life is still difficult.  At least three of my seven days of the week, I feel like a failure, but I am back to procrastinating with cleaning the house.  A sure sign of feeling better.  I worked the steps and feel fairly good again.  I gave myself the rest of April to play before diving back into the editing of my novel.  I have a ton of yard work to do.  I also somehow have to start clearing the garage of all my projects.  I am just too busy!

Today I am having a rough day.  At the beginning of the week, today was a completely free day to work on writing and gardening.  The late afternoon my calendar became busy and this morning I had to add an interruption for midmorning.  I want to curl up on the couch and read or watch television.  Instead, I will listen to music and push through the negativity as I write one word after the other.  In afternoon I will dive into my gardens.  This means the two places I have to go this afternoon I will probably have dirt in my hair, but to hell with it.  I have to get plants moved before the weather is too warm to move them.  I also need to pull weeds before they turn into trees!