Postmodern Survival

^- Pidgin latin for “seize the moment,” or a general description of my progress on school work lately? You decide.

I am here listening to CBC 3 Radio, which is really fuckin’ wild, I don’t mind saying. Its a nice change of pace from Sky.fm’s Roots Reggae station, which had been my late night study music of choice for the last several months. I have to say, though, it is a little weird and disconcerting that all the women seem to sound like Leslie Feist, who herself sounds ever so slightly like Alanis Morisette. It must be a Canadian, or should I say Canadienne, thing. I love Canada.

So it’s been awhile since I blogged, and even longer since I blogged substantially about myself. So long, in fact, that it was on another blog entirely! I have a lot of reasons for that, some right and some wrong. Here is a sampling. For the majority of the last several months I’ve been pretty severely depressed. I’m not very happy to begin with, and that’s just sort of part of who I am. Unfortunately, an unexpected goodbye to a loved one made me lose my sense of humor about it and then things got really dark– the kind of dark you don’t joke about and you can’t pull yourself out of. Obviously, my semester hasn’t gone well. I might not graduate. In the face of all that blogging hardly seemed justifiable and even if it had, it’s hard to muster the energy for blogging when getting out of bed in the morning is an almost insurmountable challenge. On top of that, I had nothing good to say about anything or anyone.

A few weeks ago, the severity of the situation hit me. I was ready for drugs, therapy, whatever. It was a real low point. The next morning, after talking with family and friends I had calmed down and began thinking about things rationally. I decided to begin St. John’s Wort and DLPA, at the recommendation of someone who knows, and monitor the results. I have noticed a marked difference. I am still quite panicked and a little blue but it has sure taken the edge off. I can pretty much function and my school work is no more difficult to finish than it normally is (which is excruciatingly difficult, but not impossible). Unfortunately, it is already close to too late.

So why am I blogging? I have realized that depriving myself this outlet is exactly the wrong thing to do. I have come to terms with the situation, to the extent that it is possible. I am hopeful that things will work out in time, and things will be OK. (They always have been, after all.) I know that things are getting better because I wasn’t hopeful about anything a few weeks ago. I didn’t want to think about the future at all. Now I’m back to my old fantasies about wilderness camping and, oh yeah, I want to buy a motorcycle… really bad. (More on that later.)

Tonight I am stressed way out but if I take a minute and a deep breath, I am almost approaching a sense of wellbeing. So I decided to seize the moment here and make some record of this. I found some motivation tonight. Maybe the key is in here somewhere.