Tag: depression

When the past (and current) you cross paths…

Earlier this year, I wrote about something here for the first time: some of my romantic past. That entry introduced the three women in my life who something “more” would be possible with (in a more ideal world, anyway).

And in the last couple days, something has changed. But first, a quick glimpse into the “past” me:

When I was in my 20s, I was way too needy about meeting someone. This was thanks to my late bloomer status (thus wanting to catch up on “girlfriend” time that I’d missed out on during high school and college). But that permanently changed around the time I hit 30. A good thing, right?

Yep, in many respects, it was. But here was the problem: that’s also the time that I became much more empty about life in general. I went from being too needy to being a somewhat emotionless shell.

So while I enjoyed dating during my 30s and early 40s, there was never much “more” behind it. Even with those three women who I had more poignant connections with. It never felt the same as it did during my 20s, when I still had the capacity to feel something meaningful about someone.

Until now.

Something is now different with the person who I experienced movie-like electric and transcendent chemistry with (the night that we met). No, we didn’t hook up, but I think this quote from her sums it up for both of us: “(our kissing) damn near stopped my heart”. And she is so not the type to sound like that.

This is someone who I’ve spent just that one evening with in my life. That was 10 years ago. Since we’ve never lived closeby (and both our lives are usually so messed up), we’ve chatted on and off all that time, but we never managed to get together again since.

But in the last couple days, it’s become different. Things have changed from how it always was (“we know what chemistry we have, but our focus is elsewhere in life”) to our minds being on each other now. I’m not necessarily referring to being together relationshipwise; it doesn’t have THAT kind of more serious ring to it yet. Largely because we both know that we’re not ready to (or may not be able to) ever approach something like that.

Still though….this is the first time that I’ve experienced that “meaningful” factor with anyone since I was in my 20s. We both now sound somewhat smitten and ready to finally meet up again to see what happens.

Not only does it feel strange for that to happen again after all this time, but I have to be careful with it too (especially when it comes to her feelings and emotions about it). My depressive emptiness could still win out here. Since this is uncharted territory for the “me” of the last 15 years, it’s tough to tell how it will go.

Regardless of what happens though, I’m glad to have accessed that part of me again. Even if it’s just for a little while.

Because I thought that piece of me might be gone forever.

Round and round

If you’re not used to the ’80s song titles, then you haven’t seen enough of my recent entries!

The last couple of months have been very trying. Between helping mom out with a bunch of doctor appointments (her physical health is not good right now) and trying to get tons of tasks done before moving on, I have been at the family’s for longer than I expected. And at this point, since I’m the only close family she has left, I’m going to stay for Thanksgiving before looking more seriously for a new location.

That new location will probably end up being due south. I’ve decided that I am not ready to do my target city again yet, and the Covid effects there make it not ready for me either. Planning on spending a year or two trying to improve life in the warmth (and then hopefully it will finally be time for that permanent destination).

Not what I’d planned, and there’s still no way that I want to wait til anywhere near retirement age to settle in there. But I’m ok with being 48 or so for it.

In the meantime, unfortunately it’s still been the typical. I do better, then worse, put away more sportscards, do better, do worse, better , worse, more cards, etc etc. So between the consistent additions and gains in collectibles value this year, my collection’s worth is still quickly growing and continues to function as a safety net for my lack of discipline with my finances (and life) .

I’ve been asked “How are the cards such a safety net? You could just sell them whenever you need to and have that money available, the same as any other $”. Well, here’s why: when I trade or bet, it’s so quick and easy. A few keystrokes, and you’re done. Lightning fast action. But to sell cards easily at the right price, you have to list them on ebay, take pics, package them up, take it to the post office, give up the ebay fees of around 10%, and so on.

And with my constant depression, coming up with the energy to do all that extra stuff just isn’t appealing. Plus, I’ve already developed a sentimental attachment to the cards. They connect me to my past and to my love for sports. So if I sold the cards (especially to fund addictive and destructive behavior), I’d feel even worse about myself than I already do.

Which means that when I buy something for my personal collection, it stays put. And until I fix myself, that’s a good thing.

Speaking of fixing myself: whenever things turn downward, at some point I’ll still think “ok, this time you are DONE acting like this” and plan to immediately find all the books I need to read about willpower, self-control, diet, and so much else.

But then I never do. Which, as always, makes it nearly impossible to improve my situation for the long term. And usually leads to any new upswings collapsing before long.

Maybe living in the sun year-round will finally give me the motivation that I still haven’t mustered. It definitely won’t hurt, anyway.

Wish me luck.

Loner chronicles, part 2

Well, part one was many months ago. Feel free to search for it (because that would require such extra effort at the moment).

When I mentioned last night that I’d mention the alone part of this long trip in my next entry, I had no idea that this evening would drive things home even more. Thanks to a craving for spaghetti and meatballs, which is naturally the root of all evil.

Decided to just take the car out and search for whatever caught my eye close by, and found an Italian restaurant not far from where I used to live in this city (though I’d never been there).

Table for one.

In any other town but this one, eating alone in this restaurant would’ve really stood out. But since anything goes here and there are so many tourists, it wasn’t as noticeable. Still though, the experience drove home one of the problems with a loner lifestyle that much more.

I should clarify that I don’t actually wish for the company of other people very often, and I’ve even mentioned before how I usually prefer to spend most of my time alone. But here’s the thing: just because it’s my comfort zone doesn’t mean that you don’t feel disillusioned about it sometimes. And in my case, that’s because you know that the loner lifestyle is not often as fulfilling as those who genuinely live the typical fuller life with family, friends, and acquaintances.

And that’s the part that can hurt: knowing that not only would you be happier with more connections with others, but that you’re trapped in a mindset of not wanting that anyway.

Despite all of that, it’s not something that I’ll probably ever change much (if at all). It’s who I’ve been since I was a little kid; even though I lived a suburban childhood that was always around other kids, my home base has always been my own little world first. As I’ve mentioned in prior entries, it’s never come naturally for me to bond much with others.

That still happens though; I have normal communication and friendships/family life in the world. But the difference is that I just don’t feel the same kind of deep connection with them as most people do.

And it shows.

So for everyone who lives the more typical life with people and these life experiences: take a moment now and then to appreciate it.

Because some of us will never know that world

Update on all worlds (my own, travel, and otherwise)

After surviving my near disaster on the interstate not too long ago, I made it to my target city and have been here for the last few weeks. Will leave on Wednesday to head back across the country for the time being (since we still have to learn more about my mom’s health situation this fall) before I decide if I can make the permanent move back here yet.

I am already starting to feel the time pinch though. Both because I can’t stay at the family’s house for very long once I travel back (before going crazy) and with how my resume will show a much more difficult gap if I get into 2021 without a 9 to 5 job but still decide to pursue one.

A lot of difficult decisions in the next few months. But in the meantime, I’ve learned a little more about what my possible choices may be like.

Here’s one thing that people may welcome hearing: during my last month on the road, I’ve noticed that people are still travelling and they are still out spending money. All the way across the country and even in my target city, which is very tourist-based. If it weren’t for masks and limited capacities at establishments, you wouldn’t even know that anything was different about the current world.

That’s the good news. But the bad news (for this city) is that I don’t know if the normal flow of people will be enough. Small businesses are still suffering some. Especially the (still not open) bars, which are the backbone of many locals areas. And if that doesn’t change soon, it’s bound to have a longer-term deep effect on the economy and job market of this area. Even with things bustling here, it feels like finding a 9 to 5 would be a big uphill battle at the moment, and that the advantage gambling possibilities might be too tight to count on for me.

So, moving back here now would still be a noticeable risk. Which is what I expected to still find on this prep visit. But then, when has that stopped me?

It hasn’t been easy being here so long on my own though. Even for a loner like myself. But I think I’ll save that for my next entry.

Anyway…..wish me luck on the return trip back.

(Or at least a lack of nearby explosions along the way this time)

So close, yet so far away…

This trend of quoting music lyrics is starting to get out of control. Oh well. But this one describes a lot of my past brushes with deeper happiness or meaning in life.

These aren’t those moments that necessarily meant the most, but just examples that quickly come to mind.

Soon after I graduated from college: becoming established in a closer network of friends (which doesn’t happen too often). A situation that would have helped keep my depression a little more at bay. But one of the guys would always look to pick a fight every time we went out, and I just could not enjoy always wondering if every night was going to turn into possibly getting arrested for no good reason. Before long, I started to distance myself from them.

After I moved to California: met someone who I had great chemistry with. But I was still emotionally distanced, and the fact that she made things all about me (obviously some people would love that, but I need balance), combined with how my loner mentality had become more permanently established by then, led to me not pursuing anything more with her.

About five years ago: breaking out into bad 90s R&B singing along with the jukebox with a good friend of my good friend’s boyfriend at a bar (who I’d just met). As a pasty white boy, it is very rare to meet someone who knows that music like I do. After maybe an hour of knowing each other, she and I were already planning how we wanted to go to this concert soon. There was just one problem though: she was batshit crazy. I just couldn’t follow through. Even as little as I value my life sometimes, being turned into a lampshade didn’t sound good.

Three years ago: this time I DID end up at a concert I wanted. But the person with me was a total mismatch for being there. There was someone I briefly dated prior who should have gone with me. Even though I couldn’t see anything serious happening with her, it would have been just right for that particular night.

And once again, those are just a few examples off the top of my head.

This is what most of my years have been like: just on the edge of some meaningful happiness here and there, but coming up just short of it happening. Very close to being just right, but not quite enough. Whether it be friends, significant others, or simply enjoying the best things in life.

Sometimes it’s been my fault, sometimes others’ fault, and sometimes it was no one’s fault. But to this day, the theme has never changed:

So close, yet so far away.

Cherish the life we live?

Yes, this time I quoted Kool & the Gang.

You know how people talk about having their life flash before their eyes and surviving some sort of brush with death? And all the feel good stories about how it made them appreciate things that much more afterward?

In the last few days, I’ve learned that it doesn’t necessarily work that way.

During my road trip across the country in the last week, I was driving on the interstate in Texas (about 40 miles away from much civilization) when a bolt of lightning hit just in front of my car. It looked like an orange explosion from a movie scene. And it instantly caused all of my car’s electronics to go haywire and made it very difficult to maintain enough power to keep driving.

Not only did I keep control of the car, but I also made it to the nearest city in my poor crippled vehicle. Every time I had to floor it to get new acceleration, it could barely do much but managed to respond without dying. So I was very fortunate to avoid a catastrophic wreck.

Between this near disaster and all of the poor decisions that I’ve made in my depressed life mess in the last couple decades, you’d think that this would make me take a deep breath and re-evaluate how lucky I am to still be here. Especially in one piece.

But that hasn’t happened.

I knew how empty I’ve felt for all these years, but my reaction to this just makes it hit home that much more. If your life flashing before your eyes doesn’t make you care enough to jolt (heh, pun) some energy into you, then I don’t know what will.

Combine that with how I continue to do worse and worse in general as this year goes on, and things feel that much more dire. I’m not even looking forward to getting back to my target city at the moment, because it seems like nothing I can do there will be enough to dig me out of my situation.

Anyway….I hope to be back on the road by Friday with a rental car. There’s no point in turning back now.

I guess if someone takes anything from this, it’s the following: don’t expect some random, scary event to somehow make your depression or other life issues ok. Just another spot where the real world does not end up like an ideal storybook path.

If you do want things do improve, you’re probably gonna have to do it the hard way and put in the lengthy groundwork to change your habits from square one.

“It’s an affair of the…..mind”

I was just watching a flashback compilation of entertainment from the year 1983. A song by Rick Springfield that I hadn’t heard in awhile came on for a few seconds. “You better know it’s an affaaaair of the heart. Clap…..clap. It’s an affair of the heart”. Love that song. Decided to click on his discography to see how high it charted back then, which led to bumping into his wikipedia page. And finding something quite sad and troubling.

Springfield has pretty much had success his entire adult life. A minor hit album in the early ’70s when he was just starting out, then a regular TV actor for awhile when his music career fizzled temporarily, to becoming a pop superstar during the first half of the ’80s with a huge catalog of great music and big hits, and then back to acting (and even some successful musicals on Broadway).

But while his avenues for success kept changing over a period of many decades, there was one constant in his life: deep, suicidal depression. Which still remains.

When he was 17, he hanged himself (and only lived because the knot broke just in time). Then 50 years later (in 2017), he talked about how he was very close to ending his life again.

And as all of us who’ve dealt with lifetime adult depression know, those 50 years in between his deepest suicidal attempts and thoughts probably weren’t much better for him emotionally.

Here is a guy who always found a way to stay ahead (over a period of many decades, which is naturally so tough to do in show business). And was adored by countless fans. But when your mind is incapable of turning the corner and learning to enjoy life, even those things don’t help nearly enough.

This was a needed reminder for my own situation at the moment, though. I’ve talked so much about how I need to regain enough success to feel better about how I’ve handled life overall (or else I just can’t see myself ever turning any corners emotionally). But I can’t forget how having success didn’t help me achieve that emotional health when I was in my 20s, and it won’t be enough now either.

So if it’s not a well-rounded recovery, it probably won’t matter. I have to be sure to keep my eye on that ball. Achieve a happiness and healthy comfort level of life that balances more than just your career ups and downs.

Or even if I do get back on track, I’ll have the same demons at age 70 that Springfield still does today. And I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

Moving on…yet again

I’m now moved out of my place, except for the rest of the cleaning and loading up some things to bring with me. That will take the rest of the weekend, so I’m at a hotel until Monday morning. But since I’m still in town and have stuff to do, it doesn’t have the same enjoyable feeling of escape that I recently described for my hotel ventures.

This move doesn’t feel the same as the last two, because I knew that they would be somewhat temporary (due to my dad getting so sick). But now, there’s more pressure about finding my first hopefully permanent solution in a long time. Though thanks to the current COVID world, even that is very iffy at the moment.

Unfortunately, things are not going that well. Financially or otherwise. Attempting to get planted in my target city for good is still possible, but definitely questionable. And now it might be delayed because of my mom going out of town to some different doctors soon (along with the constant threat of citywide or statewide shutdowns at my destination and elsewhere).

Basically there are new unavoidable barriers everywhere. As if I hadn’t already created enough of those on my own.

So I’m feeling more antsy than I normally would about all of this. Mom should find out any day now when her doctor’s appointment might be, so at least I should know soon if I can keep my expected departure date of August 11.

And looking at my empty place as I finish up this weekend won’t help. Even though I knew I wouldn’t stay in this city for the long term, jumping all over the place every so often (for the last 15 years) gives an uneasy feeling about how you’re handling life. Especially since with each of the last few moves, I’ve slipped further and further into more troublesome and empty future possibilities.

That’s why I hope that this next one sets me up for the rest of my life. Or if the COVID world delays that for a couple months (or even a couple years), that I get there soon enough to salvage the chance at creating some remaining good years.

Maybe six months ago, I wrote a post about my future was soon going to turn into either a rebirth or a destruction of life (and that there was about a 50/50 chance of each). But with these new developments since then, I’d say even that sounds too optimistic.

I guess we’ll find out.

What world does this globe really represent?

I was just looking around at some of my boxes as the moving day looms closer. Sitting there in the corner was a distinguishable one that I’ve gotten to know well.

Once on vacation during my late 20s, I was walking through a nice shopping galleria with the woman I was dating at the time. There was a high-end knick knack shop that was going out of business. Selling zillion dollar pieces for a few cents and so on.

For no reason whatsoever, I’ve always liked globes. There was a high quality black one there that, of course, was marked down to a fraction of the cost. About 18 inches in diameter, so something that was easy to see but not cumbersome to display. And I’ve never been the oh-so cultured type to liven up my place with something like that. Yes, this purchase was a no-brainer.

After it got delivered, it waited patiently for me to find a stand for it.

About 15 years and four (soon to be five) moves later, it’s still with me. In that same box. Not only have I never bothered to get the stand for it, but I’ve never even taken it out to see it again since.

This symbolizes my existence.

Rarely finishing tasks that aren’t absolutely necessary. Rarely making the most out of my living enviroment. But most importantly, rarely taking pride in myself, my possessions, and the enjoyable things in life.

I’m even doing the same thing lately with the baseball cards that I’ve collected in the last year. Sometimes I look forward to looking back through certain sets. But as you can guess, that hasn’t happened once. Especially since I’m not done getting some of them put away the right way to begin with.

This may not seem like a huge deal on the surface, but habits like this feed my depression regularly. It all happens for a handful of reasons: lack of energy, lack of caring enough to find that energy, a lack of focus to even remember to enjoy myself enough.

But the main one at this stage in my life is this: all of my failures of recent years. When the huge things that went wrong are often at the forefront of my mind, then I can’t appreciate the important little things. They pale by comparison, so I just don’t care enough to try and harvest any positives at all from them.

This is one of the many building blocks of my most important psychological life improvement project going forward: learning to be ok with being happy. I imagine that would make it easier to shove the bad things aside long enough to appreciate the good.

So when I end up in my next destination after this move, one of the first things I need to do is find a stand for that globe. And then prominently display it somewhere that I can always see it. Stop for a moment and look it at least once a day. Both to enjoy it and as therapy to remind myself to make some of these necessary improvements in how my mind sees life.

Up until this point, it’s represented my bad habits. Maybe now, it can be a symbol of getting them fixed.

Save tonight

Save tonight, and fight the break of dawn.

A big hit song from 1997 about lovers who are about to be separated the following morning. But in my case, those lyrics fit virtually every day. It’s 6:15 AM here at the moment and happening as we speak

Yep, I think a lot about escapes and being away from humanity. And this makes for back-to-back entries about them. There is something so serene and relaxing about late night existence. Businesses are closed and most people are inside asleep (or quietly in the same boat as I am).

You can hear a single car pass by, the click of a stoplight changing, or the distant occasional bark of a dog. Sometimes the sound of an ambulance siren that’s much more ominous than when other noises are competing with it during the day. Look up into the limitless dark, and see the universe that reaches beyond anyone’s imagination and possibilities.

And, just as I mentioned the last time: when you’re depressed, stuck with your life, and not doing nearly enough to solve your issues….you don’t feel obliged to take care of business that can only be addressed during the workday. A brief respite from the gloom and antsyness that comes from often feeling down about yourself in that way.

But when the morning comes, all of the above goes away. And you feel some disappointment that you have to wait for the next sunset for your favorite time of day to come back.

The good thing is that since I’m a warm weather person, whenever I’m living in a seasonal climate, the warmth I cherish is a decent tradeoff for the longer days of that time of year. And vice versa. I would rather have nonstop give/take for the year than six months each of all the best or the worst. That wouldn’t be good for my state of mind.

Still though, regardless of the warmth, it’s not easy fighting every daybreak. And I hope to eventually not feel this way about life’s existence at some point.