Happy Equinox, SAD sufferers!

Today is the first day of Spring, and one of the two days of the year when day and night are of equal length.  From here on out -- until the Summer Solstice at least --  there will be more daylight than darkness.

Spring is always a time when I have a lot of energy to get things done.  As it is, I've felt dramatically better since Daylight Savings time.  There's something about that extra hour of daylight in the evening that improves my mood and productivity.  I love DST and I wish they'd do away with standard time altogether.

Happy Equinox, and Happy Spring!

A Depressive Makes Some New Years Resolutions

I started this post in early January, but I'm only finishing it now.  What do you want?  I have ADHD, a mutant mood disorder, and some meds that mess with my memory.  Oh, and guess what?  I'm only a few days late for Chinese New Year!  So there.

I'm so glad to see the ass-end of 2011.  There were so many challenges, so much loss.  But it's a new year and I'm not going to dwell on them.

As with every year, I am making New Years' resolutions as a way of setting my intentions for the coming year.  Last year their focus was caring for myself.  I think I did a pretty good job of that, given all the problems I had.

Here are my resolutions for 2012:

• To establish a nightly ritual in which I think of at least one good thing that happened that day.
  I spent much of last year in various states of crazy, deep depression, or profound anxiety about the future.  There weren't a lot of positives in my life, but nonetheless, I know they were there.  I need to pay more attention to them -- this is according to my friend's six year old, who, when we were visiting for the New Year, happened to mention that "something good happens every day, and we should be glad".  Out of the mouths of babes.

• I'm will structure my time and create a schedule.  A few years ago, before my life went to hell in a handbasket, I had something of a schedule that I more or less stuck to.  Work out from 10 to 11 Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  Do a certain chore from 2 to 3 every day.  Spend only three hours a day on the computer.  Spend at least two hours working on art.  I didn't always stick to it exactly, but I did sort of, and I got a lot more done as a result.

• I will enlist an ADD coach to help me in my search for meaningful work.  Now that I'm past the Solstice, I need to get back to my job search.  In the course of my last one, I realized that I have no idea what the hell I'm doing.  I feel like everyone who has a real job knows something that I don't. 

• My disabilities present an additional challenge here -- I wasn't able to "start at the bottom" as an admin like most people; and at this point I really need to be able to work from home most of the time to care for my mood disorder.  In other words, I need help.  I need real help.

• I will continue to work on my marriage.  I realized last month that, in addition to whatever legitimate frustrations my partner has, he's going through his own shit right now.  It makes him difficult to live with.  But I didn't promise to love and support him only when it was easy.

• I will work on my non-violent communication skills.  As my mood has stabilized, I've gone from the "shock and sorrow" phase of my relationship difficulties to the "really effing pissed" stage.  Thanks to our incompetent marriage counselor, and thanks to my partner's lack of emotional availability, I've spent the last several months holding space for him.  My issues have been ignored.  And this has made me angry.  Like most people, when I get angry I get reactive, and I can be sarcastic and contemptuous and say destructive things.  Since I'm the one with the capacity right now, I resolve to take on the responsibility of communicating my needs and my feelings in a non-violent way that will be easier for my partner to hear.

Happy Year of the Dragon!

Merry Christmas, Lamictal Community!

You may wonder why a Unitarian Universalist Pagan celebrates Christmas.  There are actually a lot of reasons. 

The first is that I see it as a continuation of Solstice festivities.  Many Christmas traditions derive from earlier Pagan traditions.  Like the tree.  And the gift-giving.  The all night vigil that has become midnight services.  Christmas, like Hanukkah, is at its core about light in darkness.  Hope and miracles.  Lamp oil that lasts for eight days instead of one.  A child born in a barn, but born healthy (and mom comes through herself with flying colors).

The second is that it was always an important holiday in my family.  In spite of our severe dysfunction, my mother managed to impose a truce on the household, and my father didn't yell at us for nearly a whole week.  My mother was really into the decorations, the music, the presents; in her own dysfunctional family, her father dressed up as Santa every Christmas to hand out the gifts he himself had wrapped with great care.

The third is the music.  Oh, the music.  Whether the music is a grand oratorio like the Messiah or the Weihnachts-Oratorium, or folk songs like The Coventry Carol,  it's some of the most beautiful music out there.  The metaphors are often fascinating as well.  Mary, wandering through a barren wood and causing flowers to spring up where nothing has grown for seven years.  The cherry tree bowing down to her.  Mary as a "rose of virtue".  These metaphors refer to her powers as a goddess-like being, her power as a pregnant woman.  

This is a tough time of year for people with mood disorders.  May all of you find the light in this time of darkness.  Have yourselves a merry little Christmas, y'all.