End of a tough week

Life is difficult.

I have been mentally under the weather lately and not having the desire or energy to write anything. You ever have those periods of time where you wonder what the point is with anything? I was having lunch today and was thinking about my life and things in the past.

I marvel at people who can keep the different periods of their life from all mixing together. Someone you love dies and you bury them. After mourning, you get on with your life. A lot of people go on and seem to be able to do pretty well. To me, life is like a collage (Merriam-Webster: an assembly of diverse fragments). The fragments of life don't stay in time, but are part of my life now. I was having a peaceful lunch, and a fragment of my life from 1984 came back to me full force. I was in a nursing home. I was sitting on my mothers bed. We had visited. It was close to time for me to leave. I was catching a plane back to my home in San Francisco. I said goodbye. She looked at me and said "I love you honey". I said "I love you too". I got up and walked out through the doorway.

On the other side of the wall, I stopped. A voice inside of me said, "Are you sure you want to leave? You will not see her again." I left. I got almost to the exit of the building, and started crying. How many times did that voice talk to me when I left my friends who had AIDS? How many times was it right. It was always right. I said, "damn you! leave me alone!". I got to the car. I cried for an hour knowing that my mother was yards away from me, and I left.

So today, I'm at lunch and this fragment of memory invades my privacy and violates my emotions. I do feel violated. I want to know why I must relive painful experiences such as this over and over and over. Don't get me wrong. I have what most would consider a good life. My short experience on this earth has been filled with rich experiences, good and bad. I can't honestly say that I don't want the awful memories of what has happened in the past to be part of me, because the awful stuff also has fond memories associated with it. I guess that is what life is about. You take the good with the bad. It's just that at times it crashes down on me a bit. Is anyone else like this? Doctors call it "depression" but I get the feeling that it is very common with many of us. I sometimes think that doctors look for a word to describe everything. Once they have a name for what you have, sure enough they will have a pill to take for it.

I think we are over medicated in this country. I used to take antidepressants all the time. It made it difficult to even do my job. It got to a point that I had to make a decision on which was worse, the depression or the cure for it. In the end, I gradually took myself of medication over a period of three months. Today, I'm not clear of depression, as the week proves, but now I can see it coming from a mile away. Of course, each time is a challenge to see how much control I will maintain. It's a battle at times. This week has been exceptionally difficult.

Now that the week is nearing an end, I can also feel the depression lifting. I've thought over the week on what could have precipitated it, and have no clear answers. Maybe it's purely chemical and not within my control.