Side issues...

Had a lovely chat with my doctor the other day, and covered many issues in a brief period of time. A wide variety of things have improved, one is identified as being negatively affected by a certain, ummm, lack of rigid control regarding caloric and carb intake, I've lost four pounds, I have limited authorization to go play in a gym, and the doc and I had a most illuminating chat.

Since my father fell ill, and then passed, and my subsequent separation from my employer - combined with concerns about my own various health issues - my level of cheeriness has been notably sub-par, my social skills less than at their best, and I've been generally operating in something of a state of malaise. I suspect, though objectivity about ones own creative work is hard to come by, that my writing has rather deteriorated.

Not actively contemplating anything foolish, I fell into a state of mind that while I was certainly prepared to do any little thing that duty or ethics required, I wasn't precisely showing a great deal of initiative. I threw myself into clearing up Dad's estate and stabilizing Mom for independent living (fixing up her house, etc.) and began to withdraw into myself and become notably cranky, beyond my usual cynical abandon.

Though not a big fan of organized religion, I remain a believer nonetheless. I asked my higher power rather regularly that if He didn't have anything special for me to do...if He might be gracious enough to call me home.

My rationale was that I was heartily tired of having things repeatedly turn to dung, and if the good Lord was ready to take me, why, I was perfectly ready to go - not by my own hand, as that would be cheating by my lights, but if it was my time, I wasn't about to object.

I'm told this is called "depression". It is not, in my experience, fun.

My doc expressed that this was, perhaps, a less than ideal view and some medication might be in order. Between us, we looked at various issues, and he suggested a mild anti-depressant. I'm not exactly a big fan of pill-popping, and tend to warp medical folk when I argue against pain medications, so it took a bit of talking to get me to "try this out."

I agreed, and that was a couple of weeks ago. I'd forgotten, but back when I was doing my 40 day hospital stay, I'd also been placed on a mild anti-depressant, and it did good things. This time, the effects seem to have kicked in fairly quickly.

I begin to suspect this little issue hasn't been a "gee whiz, a bright shiny new malady" - instead, more something that's been low-level and undiagnosed for a long, long, time. More something that recent events exacerbated, than anything new. It would certainly explain a few things.

I'm waiting for my body to adapt and throw off the sleepiness I'm told is initially endemic to such things - but while not much in reality has changed, I have independent verification I'm notably cheerier and less cranky...and subjectively, I'm feeling much better - and a lot more active in my job search as savings, indeed, do not last forever (would that they did!).

Anyway. Hopefully this means that, in combination with other little improvements to life, I'll be posting more often, and in a more organized/less rambling fashion. I'm not posting this for a bunch of "pity pats" or sympathy comments - but more as an apology for not posting more regularly and for rambling a bit of late, and in the hopes that if someone else out there stumbles across this whilst in the midst of "life sucks, can we be done yet?" auto-pilot...that perhaps they'll find something worthwhile in my comments.