I’ve got grief, wanna see it? or Personal progress

I wrote this ten months ago in a fit of insomnia, sadness, unemployment and some surprising 4am clarity. You know what it proves? That what we call personal progress is slow and circular. We make concentric circles in our efforts to be better people and we come back to the same stuff, the same issues, over and over again. Beautifully frustrating.

May 2012

I would describe it as a mental health week. That’s what it has been, this past stretch of days. We like to name sequences of time so that we can remember them or feel like we’ve learned something, made the most of it, or maybe we’re just self-absorbed. So while I was busy being so aware of myself it happened. My mental health week crept in through the backyard even though I had been watching carefully from the front porch, thinking I’d see it strolling down the street and get ready for its arrival. Five or six days later and there it is, boozing and smoking it up on the back patio, like I had been entertaining it on purpose. It was taking up space without my even knowing it. Although, that’s why I’m writing this. I know it. And it’s real. And once again, I have to face myself, my situation, and say, yes I have a mental…I live with mental…I have a low grade depression called…this is who I am.