It’s been more than a week since I last posted here and I feel like I have a lot to say, but also nothing to say. I am having a hard time, depression-wise, and this morning had to face the fact that I am simply not doing as well as I would like to.
When you don’t have much left in reserve, emotionally, it’s easy to overreact and get into a bad state of mind due to even the smallest of things. This morning, I messed up my smoothie (to the extent that it contained shredded plastic and had to be discarded entirely) and had a bunch of things fall off a shelf. And then I couldn’t find my pen case, which ended up being in a really obvious place.
It put me in a thoroughly shitty mood.
The last few nights, I’ve slept pretty well, actually. And yet, I’m exhausted today. I’m feeling pessimistic and generally very down.
I’ve been in this place enough times before to realize that this is just the depression doing its thing, and all the negative thoughts I’m having about myself and my work, my plans, my future, my everything – that these awful things my brain is telling itself are just distortions. They are not accurate, they are not true, they are only temporary noise.
Still, when you’re running on fumes, you just don’t have much resilience, and it’s really hard to bounce back.
It’s also curious, isn’t it, how the mind can both rationally know something to be true or false, but at the same time emotionally believe in the contrary.
In the last few days, I’ve decided that the first product I’m going to make, on which I’m going to focus almost exclusively until it’s done, is an online course in developing B&W film at home. It could be anything, really, but I have to decide on something specific or nothing will ever get done. This project fits because it’s an area of expertise and enthusiasm for me and I think I can get the whole thing turned out in a reasonable amount of time. And once it’s finished, I can turn to the next thing. Keep iterating and learning how to do this sort of thing better and better and better.
Trying to build a landing page for the course right now, but it’s just not coming together. Taking a break now, will try to do a little more before the kids arrive for the afternoon, or maybe I’ll just play with it on the train after work.
Days like this are hard, but at least I know the territory well enough to know that it will pass.
