recovery – Upon this Rock

Here we go again…

We’re two Saturdays into 2025 and it has a different feel. I’ve always been excited and ambivalent about the new year. It’s been so long since there’s been a reason to celebrate the ball dropping, having my person to smootch – just because or the first foot. I am hopeful, always hopeful, the coming year is full of goodness and change. For my own part there are small changes in place and I’m trusting the process.

A lot happened in 2024. A LOT. It wasn’t the best year I’ve had despite coming off a traumatic 2023, as always I am unapologetically who I am. I have trusted with the assumption whatever happens is supposed to happen and worry doesn’t really matter. The upside is the mental gymnastics it takes to stay positive and push the unknown (worry) out of your head. I’ve learned to focus on what’s going on now and being present in the moment. Some days are much harder than others. Still I keep moving forward.

Not all of 2024 was a shit-show. My older daughter graduated from college, my mom had a surgery and is mostly recovered now, she’s a verifiable Titanium SuperHero! My older brother has somewhat come back into the fold, my younger keeps kicking ass with her perfect GPA and looks like 2025 is going to be her year to finish college. I get to play with my kids and goof off with my very good friends.

I’ve been fortunate to have help when things got hard. In my last post I was nearing the bottom which I found a few days later. Rumination, worry, sadness – depression sat on me. I couldn’t get away from it. The deeper I swung the more I reached out for help. The down side and perhaps the upside was those I reached out to, my former most trusted, were silent. It was a fight to see the sun come up and for a little bit I fantasized about putting a slug through my head. I saw Rocco that week and more or less spent our session breaking down. Again, thankfully a good friend came and took my firearm when I asked him, no questions asked and checked my headspace. Other close friends rallied and checked on me. I upped my meds again which has helped in the longer term.

The clouds come and pass again, the only really interesting thing is the tachycardia I’m experiencing fairly regularly. It’s hard to sleep when your heart is beating out of your chest. I suspect my keeping calm on the outside is taking its toll on the inside. Exercise helps but even when I kick my ass with a workout, sleep eludes me and I default back to the trusty Ambien to find sleep.

As much as I am not in control of what’s happening around me, I am able to find peace in small bits and be kind to myself. It’s less difficult and still not easy. There is worry. Even Rufas-the-wonder-dog has picked up on the recent state of being and stays very close at all times. As we’re 11 days into the new year, I have no idea what will happen in the future. I have hopes and realization that what’s been won’t be again. A blessing and not so much of one. I often ask Rocco when I see him, ‘What’s new and Exciting?’ to which he responds everything is new and exciting all the time.

He’s right of course. Who knows what tomorrow is going to bring any of us, we’re certainly not promised a tomorrow. Being mindful of the past while we sit in the present and enjoy the goodness is my attempt for 2025. That and moving every day. We’ll see what happens, the good stuff is all around us when we look for it, smiling and laughing at the stupid keep them at bay and being present for those I love is what I’m trying to put my focus on.

Stay Salty…..

Calamity Calamitous or Fortuity Fortuitous?

Thanks Ai for hitting the image on the nose 😉

I got bad news yesterday, something I had hoped would go one way went another. This seems to be happening a fair amount this year, ups and downs, BIG ups and BIG downs. I became redundant again in late May, which caused a decline in my overall mental health. That along with a hot mess of a summer led into a depression which in turn had me increase my medication. The events that seemed so bad have really made a difference for me in so many positive ways. More lessons, more goodness. The clouds however present they are, seem to clear again.

Since my divorce I have had a great number of ‘knock you down’ incidents, most of them I have weathered alone and on my own. Some of them were because of my poor choices and many of them just happened along the way. As it turns out, Apparently, I’m a pretty strong motherfucker. I say apparently because it is apparent I am able to move through these very tough times on my own. There are no hugs, no I’m sorry’s, no one is sitting with me in my sadness, or holding my hand, just me (and Rufas the wonder dog). Of course, sitting in your sadness isn’t a bad thing, it moves in and moves out with time and patience. As my past-potential-pseudo mother-in-law was known to say, no feeling lasts forever. The sun is always shining behind the clouds. I will translate this into be a Weeble-wobble. You can Weeble, you can wobble, but don’t fall down. For me, I keep getting up again. That alone feels empowering.

I’m moved to write after the revelation regarding my own strength. I’ve been castigated in the past over my ‘need to have company’ or my seeming ‘issue of being alone.’ And the truth of the matter is, these are the same people who NEVER have time alone except when their kid(s) are off with their other parent or out doing something with their friends. They have little windows of time alone which they cherish. I understand that aspect of being. Heck, my ex-wife was waving that flag so much for so long it was ingrained into my psyche that I felt maybe there was something wrong with me for enjoying other people’s company and my dislike of being alone. Since then, I have come to look forward to my own alone time to do the things I like to do. It’s not as if I don’t understand it or need it myself.

The difference is extended time alone. Where you have entire blocks of time, hours, days, weeks where you don’t have any physical contact with anyone. Phone calls, yes, emails, of course, polite conversation in restaurants but not intimacy. No deep conversations with someone you respect on the couch. It can be a lot at times and monotonous. I am finding while I am fine on my own and don’t feel a need to have ‘a partner’ a ‘girl-friend’ or ‘friend-with-benefits’, I do miss a connection. I miss the smell of a woman and enjoying spending time with them. I miss having someone to cook for and touch (APPROPRIATELY!) It’s more a point of having someone to share things with in real time.

That all said, I am blessed to have a very close-knit group of men who have seemingly come out of the woodwork over the course of the last year or more. We have revived our old connections and deepened them. It’s amazing to have this community of men. We very much care and feed each other, we know what’s going on and can hear the inflection in a voice that says, I’m not ok even when the voice is saying the opposite. These things are an absolute joy and treasure. In that respect, I am not *ALONE* and still, it’s not the same as having your person. I like to say the men in my circle give good hugs, but their beards are scratchy and, they don’t smell all that great.

Where should I go from here? I’m alone with no one to give me a hard time about neurotically preparing a pint of Ben and Jerry’s for the next go round. No one to smack my ‘meaty ass.’ Just me and my fella out here in our world doing our thing. While the majority of this regards being ‘alone’ it doesn’t mean that I am miserable this way. I am coming to enjoy it. I have found a peace that’s been elusive for so long. I’m determined to keep that peace and moving forward will only not be alone until I can find someone who adds to and expands my peace.

Until then, it’ll be just me and my fella, doing what we do.

With quiet strength and resolve in mind, be kind to yourself, be kind to others. Be someone’s port in the storm and/or rock to cling to. Stay salty!

Depression, deep rest and coming up for air

I’ve suffered for a good part of my life with very strong feelings, lots of times it felt like a yo-yo. Sometimes super highs would be followed by soul crushing lows. At one point as a 20 something despondant college student someone suggested something (ie Meds) to help me deal with the highs and lows. A discussion ensued with my parental units and they were supportive, but did point out there would be things I’d have to give up (like beer and I like beer) to be on the meds. An interesting thing happened after that point, I learned, through speaking with a therapist, to control my highs and lows without the need for meds. Things were, for the most part, alright. Yeah…strong feelings were still there, but the massive chaos seemed to dissipate and was controllable.

Marriage and kids tested this chaos as more pressure comes with getting older and having a family to care for. I would blow up sometimes to beat my spouse to blowing up and being nasty to our kids. By sucking the air out of the room, I took the heat for being the bad guy, but also didn’t have to deal with anyone being nasty. In effect I could control the outcome with being the one who was a blowhard. Over time, this isn’t so cool either as you worry about what’s going to set someone off so you go off yourself seemingly unprovoked. I had lived with this behavior as a kid and now I was perpetuating the same abuse on my own kids I endured. Let me tell you – that realization doesn’t make you feel any better as a parent. Worse yet – go to church and realize that God the Father loves us despite our failings and then look at how you treat your own kids by yelling at them over stupid things – oy vey…. Capitol G GUILT!

About a year ago, I was sitting in church on one of my favorite liturgical days of the year – Pentacost. Everyone wears red, we read about how wondrous God’s words are that they are able to be heard in the native language of everyone hearing the word of God. As if God were speaking to them directly. As wonderful as this all was, I was miserable. I wanted to die and was trying to figure out my exit plan…. this was the depression talking. Thankfully, I had built in a pressure valve and called a dear friend for help, called my therapist and my Primary care provider, a week later I was on anti-depressants and starting to feel much better. I was ashamed it took me 25+ years to get to this point and thankful I got relief from the anxiety I had been feeling for so long.

Over the past months I’ve found myself on a slippery slope back towards the darkness. I have a dear friend and classmate who describes depression like falling down a hole. He’s a much better writer than I am, an award winning journalist actually, but he’s right – it feels like you’re drowning. Lately I’ve lost the ability to cry which is troubling, I’m a crier – I cry when I’m happy, sad or just plain moved. It feels good to get that emotion out. I look forward to the day when someone makes me cry happy tears again.

Ok – so what about this coming up for air thing? Where’s the positive? Good question. I recently had a bang up day – a really great day – like it went to 11. I had a great weekend, a wonderful lunch, locked down a venue for a very special 80th birthday party for someone I owe nearly everything to capped off with lots of magnificent feelings. Jim Carey once said that depression is really your body’s way of saying you need a deep rest. I will buy that description. As for me today, I feel like I have ridden the free diving sled to 100 feet and I’m now ascending, my lungs are filling with air as much as my heart is filling with gratitude as I rocket back towards the light.

I’m as lucky as they come. I am Loved. I am healthy…things are looking up.

Stay Salty my friends – life needs a little spice