126. Today

Self portrait by Gray

It’s been a bit gruelling lately. Two days of full blown depression on Monday and Tuesday. Yesterday was better. Feelings of self doubt. Miss Angry (1) and her grinding litany – no one will believe you. You made all this up. You will be punished for this you know. A terrible fear embedded within me and that eats at all of us. All I can do is say sorry for this. I can’t help the thoughts. I can’t help the fear. Self doubt comes up regularly each year. Not that we can predict when but it surfaces. Wonder if it’s like putting on the brakes, or simply slowing us down. Maybe it’s my way of making sure, of asking the others over and over – are you sure about this? Did all this really happen? I am still afraid to believe 100%.

The funny thing is the more we write here, the more we write our story, the more we tell other people, the more believable it becomes. Yes, my denial is still a block, something that must be whittled away with time. Maybe I will always have to have at least one little piece left to reassure me. Just a tiny bit please. Something held in reserve. This didn’t really happen to me, did it?

We discovered, though, that we manage our depression quite well these days. We really accepted the place we were in, allowed it to be. So we stayed home most of the time. Went out for groceries, that’s all. Stayed home, drew the curtains, read books (when we could actually concentrate) and watched tv. In a way it was comforting. And we could feel, under the surface, our fight against it as well. Not resistance, but battle. That of a warrior that says, you are the enemy, and in the end I will defeat you. You may win the battle today but you will not win the war. We will not succumb to a life of misery, doubt and failure. We will be determined and we will not give up, not lose hope.

God, I hope so.

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We are impatient now as we approach the end of what we wrote for our book last year. We weren’t able to complete the whole story then. Had to stop. It was too difficult, too painful. We needed a break. But this time we want to last until the end. We want to see this through to some kind of closing, where we can say to you, “so that’s my story”. And then maybe we can put it all together and finish the book too.

There are so many things in our life that we have not completed and have criticized and judged ourself a failure for these. However, Patience (1) reminds us of things we have completed, things we have accomplished and are proud of. About a 1½ years ago we decided to study music theory. We bought ourself a book that had all kinds of exercises in it. We hoped we could complete it and to our amazement we did. We have also managed to complete a few weaving projects – a blanket and a number of wall hangings. We have written poems and short stories. We have done artwork we consider complete. So there – we cannot call ourself a failure.

Still we are stuck with high standards and judge ourself not good enough from time to time. But that only leads to depression. Yet, more and more, over the years, we do fight back and say “screw you”. We are good enough. We can do this guys. We really can.

So we will.