I really did not mean to leave this idle until May. I'm not sure why I wanted it to go like that, or if I did want it, or if there's really any answer beyond laziness. But I did. I have things to say, so I guess it's time to say them.
Seeing as my last post was in late January, I have about four months of good news to condense into a few lines, for those who read this and wish to know what the state of my life is.
The best news is that I have achieved a small measure of economic security, and have done so by acquiring what is probably the closest thing to a dream job I've ever had. In February I started working as a full-time teacher at a small charter school in rural Oregon, just outside of Salem. Shortly thereafter, I rented a two room apartment in downtown Salem, where I reside to this very day. Thus from the jaws of dejection and defeat, I have been plucked by good fortune to something very like victory. In the big scheme of things, I've become one of the lucky ones.
What a change, huh? And no record of it on The Wave Function Junction for four months. I must be busy with the new job to have been so negligent.
Well, I have been busy. Teaching social studies is hard work, especially if you want to do it right. But I haven't been as busy as all that. Whole weekends pass by where I mostly lie on the couch and engage in distraction rather than creation. I scribble a poem now and then, and I do keep up on creating assignments for my students. Very occasionally, I have even found time for exercize. But it would be a stretch too far to say I'm at the top of my game. In a way that I haven't quite perceived before, I can see that I am still sick.
Since looking my depression in the face for the first time over a year ago, I have become aware of what it means to be mentally ill. Back then, it meant idle thoughts of killing myself, against a backdrop of endless waiting for a natural death. It doesn't mean that so much anymore. The sertraline pills have done their work of evening me out, I suppose. And to be entirely fair, I have learned so much in the past year, about myself and about the workings of the mind, I have begun to heal myself from the worst wounds. The world has become survivable.
But as I said, I still feel sick. I still feel cut off from the world, cut off from passion and love. I can feel these things, and it is joyous when a connection is established by communication, or by physical presence. But in my inevitable retreat to solitude, I love without anyone to love, and I despair. Other people see it in my eyes, but they do not see the cause.
Maybe it's just perpetual dissatisfaction? Maybe it's never enough to have a job and a home, I also need a raise and a vacation and a woman to sleep with me and why not a shiny new everything? Maybe it doesn't matter. I'm better and I'm getting better. As I have reminded my friends, and as I struggle to remind myself, the world inevitably changes with time.
And I have the time. I have admitted it today, and that's why you're reading this. I'm still (unbelievably) not yet thirty, I'm young and reasonably healthy, and getting hungrier every day. Who'd have thought a meal of life could cure the blues? Well, it can't. To do that, I have to finally brave the bureaucracy and figure out how to transform my benefits package into actual health insurance, and get some damn therapy in me (and maybe about a million more pills, who knows). Perhaps discovering the true love of my life will have a positive effect, too.
The world has become survivable, and it turns out I'm sort of a survivor. That's the news as of May 2016. Hopefully it gets more interesting from here.
No comments:
Post a Comment