Reboot

Edit: I started writing this last Wednesday or Thursday. It's been sorta hard for me to write for whatever reason. And then the Robin Williams news yesterday ... I have never been that depressed, but I certainly understand how one could get there. My therapist told me that 40% of the population considers suicide at one point or another.

Sup.


As I'm getting ready to get the writing going again, I figure I'm going to start blogging again as a means of developing habit. I remember back when we started the blog ring more than a decade ago. I would go home at night and write ideas for blog posts in a notebook. What. the. fuck.

You've heard this time and again, I know, so I'll go ahead and give you the battered spouse line: This time it's different. This time he's really changed.

Truthsaying: I started talking to a therapist in February. I had to. All that weight I lost? Stress. It wasn't just portion control and exercise. It was not eating because I didn't feel like it. I had too much going on that I was, at the time, emotionally incapable of dealing with.

You know what you should do when that happens? Get help. So I did. And it's working.

I don't feel as hopeless anymore, and that's a big deal. Think about walking around for years wondering, "Is this all there is? Doesn't it ever get better?" Imagine that. I'd have that thought while driving to and from Stillwater every ... time. Three and a half years of that, four days a week.

I'm pretty sure I was clinically depressed. I don't know if you know this about depression, but it's not as easy as just propping yourself up and being cheery. It's not unlike standing at the bottom of an unclimbable cylinder, looking up at that tiny, distant circle of light and being completely incapable of reaching it. Your brain doesn't come up with positive solutions. It sees only futility, which spawns more hopelessness.

That's where I've been for awhile. I didn't know how to come back. And I'm still not all the way back, but I'm working on it. For the first time in forever, I feel positive about things.

Think about that statement coming from these fingers.

Okay, back on point.

Dennis, my dude, sat there and listened to me explain how I had finally written a synopsis for my first book. He said:

"That's great. You're doing something."

"But all I did was write a synopsis. That's not really writing."

And then he chewed me out for being judgmental toward myself and told me that any step in the direction of what you want/need to do is a positive one. I'd already told him about reading a couple books on writing. He told me that counts.

I'm thinking, "Writers write. And I haven't been. Sorta black and white."

But I suppose at this point, it does count. Rather than treading quicksand, it's a positive step in any direction. As humans, we have a tendency to stay with what we've gotten used to because it's comfortable, even if it sucks. We know what's coming. Easier to bitch than move. And that's normal, typical behavior.

That's at the core of a lot of what I've learned. Most this shit is normal; how you deal with it is what matters.

Yeah, you've heard it before, but an honest-to-thor shot at writing for real is about to happen. I'd like for most of you go be there for it, help keep me on the tracks. I promised the guys in the clan a thing a week, chapter, short story, whatever. That's what I'll give whoever stops by ... if anyone stops by. New blog? hahahaha.

That said, all this is contingent upon my "career" plan happening. Steph and I hatched this plan (well, she did) whereupon I would cut my working-for-someone-else hours in half, and spend the rest of the time trying to write a book and spending time with Kaia.

And I'm fucking excited about it. I think I can. I think I can.

It smells like freedom. It feels right.

It won't be easy for me. Negative momentum is difficult to overcome, after all. But I'll be goddamned if I'm not going to give this a try. Fuck being 65 and never having tried.

Come back soon. There'll be more. Promise.