Reflections on radio silence...

It feels strange to be writing here.  I thought that when I finally opened up a post to write, it would feel comfortable...like coming home in a way.  And instead, I feel awkward...fumbling...tumbling...

The transition from field season back to 'normal' was more difficult this year just as I predicted...and with scrambling together extra contracts needed to fill some budget shortfalls (a consequence of soft-money salaries), my winter was one of the busiest I have had (as I write that I wonder how it is possible that it can get busier and yet every year, insanely, it does).  But the reason I never returned to this space was more than that...  And I tried to decide.  Do I write about it?  Or do I let this space just fade quietly away without bringing any attention to it...as so many others have?  I still don't know the answer to that question even as I begin writing.  But I do know that even if this post ends up being the last, I'm not quite ready to let this blog go.  And so, while the urge is there today, I will write. be forewarned.  this will not be my typical post.  this will be raw.  messy.  personal.  long and rambling.  if that doesn't interest you, leave now and know that i take no offense.

one quick rip of the band aid...

I suffer from depression...with an interesting splash of anxiety now and again for the fun of it.  I've never been clinically diagnosed, or taken medication for it but I know it is there. i don't believe it is a chemical imbalance for which medication can help...i believe it is situational mixed with my personality because it has not always been there.  It comes in the form of lethargy.  complete lack of motivation/energy to even do things I enjoy.  procrastination to the extreme is a by-product. i often will shut myself off from friends for long periods of time.  It comes with emotional eating.  It comes with mind games and self-criticism.  it comes with a self-loathing that can derail me faster and longer than any harsh word I could receive from others.  i am my own worse enemy.  my close friends see this (and remind me of it when they think i need to hear it...thank you for that)...  It's a vicious cycle and a damaging, exhaustive path to be on.  i'm not alone on this path...i'm guessing that some reading this can relate.  maybe not on the level I am at...or maybe even worse.  but on some level.  acknowledging the fact doesn't always translate into having the will to do something about it.  i acknowledged it a decade ago.  i found the will to do something about it much more recently.  and maybe am ready to write about it.

almost 7 years ago, relatively new to the blogging world, i 'met' mel.  many of you probably remember her from her now removed knitting blog...pipe dreams and purling plans. her site was linked to from another i read...i clicked over and found myself looking at an impossibly beautiful pair of socks that mel had finished (I still covet those socks and one day will make a pair myself).  and also found a space that just drew me in...  mel was sincere and open in her writing...she was real and didn't try to hide her 'messy parts'.  i didn't know her from eve but it felt like finding an old friend.  i commented on those socks that day... and that opened the door to a friendship that is so special, I still have trouble wrapping my brain around how we met.  at first glance, mel and i lead extraordinarily different lives.  i wonder sometimes...if we lived in the same town, would we have become friends?  i doubt it because our circles likely would never have crossed.  knitting linked us...2000 miles away.  i am grateful beyond words.

i'm a skeptical person.  remember this.

the past couple of years, i watched mel make some pretty significant transitions in her life...all for the better.  mel and i may be different on the outside, but emotionally speaking, our similarities are more apparent.  one of the things that changed was the addition of yoga into her life.  and i watched how it affected...how it helped...her.  i had heard all about benefits of yoga but skoffed that it could bring real change to your life...i mean, how could some poses and deep breathing really help someone?  and i had been to several yoga classes and just couldn't really 'feel' it you know?  as the instructor talked to us in what i referred to as an irritatingly sickly sweet, almost monotonous tone about what we should be feeling and how not to compare ourselves with others and how if i stayed in this particular pose for 4 minutes a day every day, my life would change...well, i internally thought 'what a load of crap' and let my mind just wander to all the things i needed to get done once i got out of that class.  that skeptic voice, near and dear to me, probably would have continued to win out if it hadn't of been Mel I was watching change through yoga.  and why did I trust in her journey and not others? because she, my dear friends, is damn near as skeptical as i am. 

i don't want to admit i need help.  i'm certain i am not alone there either.  

two winters ago, i finally realized i was letting depression basically rule my life.  i needed help and i reached out to someone that i trusted and that i knew understood what i was dealing with.  mel.  by this time, she was on her way to quitting her 'corporate' job to become a yoga instructor full time.  and coincidentally (unknown to me at the time), was developing a personal client program which was designed to help folks do a home yoga practice.  she needed a test client and had wanted to ask me.  if you believe in that kind of thing, the stars had aligned.  i will admit that i had no idea how a home practice of poses was going to help my depression but i put complete faith in mel.

i did 3 months of work with mel in winter 2012/13.  and while the premise was a home yoga practice, it felt more like therapy to me.   it was hard.  and i fought against it.  i was skeptical.  i wanted everything explained to me.  HOW does this help you?  WHAT are the linkages?  and the less things could be explained, the more I feel I fought against them.  it's the scientific side of me I guess.  i started the process looking at yoga completely in the wrong way.  to me, yoga was about the pose.  about the physical.  about actually being on the mat.  mel taught me just how limited that view was.

our session that winter ended shortly before i went in the field.  i had learned a lot and i had started to understand some things about myself.  about how to change bad habits.  about self-awareness.  more than i can list here.  i actually had strings of 'good days'.  where i used to live in a world where 'good' was maybe a 4 on a 1 to 10 scale and bad was a 2, i learned (remembered) what an 8 felt like...briefly and tenuously at first, but there it was.  i also learned though that when the highs go higher, it makes the lows seem lower.  it was more painful to 'crash' back down.  and i mistakenly, at first, thought that yoga could make the crashes go away.  unrealistic but i wanted, like so many others, a fix.  when i would crash again and again, i couldn't understand that this was progress and that it's not about fixing, it's about dealing.  that realization took longer to come. and so often, during that first session, thoughts of self-protection crept back in.  maybe it was better to not be aware?  okay, never better...but easier.  oh so much easier.  i know I whined countless times to mel about how hard this was.  and she patiently would remind me that yes, it was hard, and yes it would be long, but it was worth it.  again, i trusted her.

i am not cheap, but i am frugal.

i knew at the beginning of the field season last year that i wanted/needed to do another 3 month session with mel when i came out of the field.  this was a huge step for me because though self-protection thoughts dominated, i knew that was only temporary.  by this point, mel had her 'Yoga For You' program set up and I needed to become a paying client.  i'm frugal.  and it was a bit costly (now...take that with a grain of salt.  for what you are getting, i don't think mel charges enough...but it is a cost when just looking at the numbers relative to one's paycheck).  that's saying a ton about how much the program helped me the first time...i was willing to pay for another round with no hesitation.

that's what i've been doing this past winter (well, and working of course).  i think all my non-work energy went into either that program or the side-effects of that program (which i will call 'living' again).  i couldn't bring myself to knit or spin most of the winter.  i didn't take my camera out except once for christmas.  i didn't blog (I was journaling separately).  i barely went online except occasionally to pinterest to look for recipes.  i didn't have creative energy to spare and i think i just didn't want/couldn't handle the comparisons i make with my own life with each new blog post i read.  i needed to figure my own things out without all that extra stimulus adding confusion to the mix.  As the 3 months progressed and i started making progress, little by little, these things were allowed back in.  knitting and spinning as a tool to help me...and as something i enjoy and a creative outlet.  i started following a few blogs that are near and dear to me again because I was learning not to compare anymore...but never could bring myself back to an active follow (commenting) rather than just a passive following.  it didn't feel right anymore for all kinds of reasons i won't go into here.  i don't know if that will change in time again or not.  (don't get me wrong...i miss those interactions but i don't know if commenting on blog posts is really the communication link that works for me any more)

i thought i learned a lot the first session.  what arrogance.  and ignorance.  don't get me wrong...i DID.  but this sort of process, it feels like exponential learning to me.  like going from a 1 to 2 the first time around...and then a 2 to 4 the next time around.   this process i'm on, it's forever.  there are no quick fixes which is hard to admit.  but no longer do i feel like self-preservation, or being unaware, is better.  it's hard, yes.  but hard is now better than the alternative.  no longer do i have to question everything.  i still can't explain how something seemingly physical on the surface (yoga in a very broad definition of the word) can have such profound emotional effects as well.  and it doesn't matter that I can't explain it.  i am still skeptical...that will always be there.  but in a way i think it's a good thing.  questioning is a powerful tool.  perhaps it lends itself to staying power...blind acceptance is just not ever going to work for me. 

today?  those highs are more frequent and last for a longer duration.  i still crash and i always will but i'm learning how to handle them...how to turn them around quicker.  i'm learning who i am rather than who i think i am.  i'm learning what i actually need in my everyday life in order to stay mentally sane...  friends who i've talked to recently after months of radio silence can hear a difference...they tell me how much better i sound.  this progress i think i've made...it's not in my head.  it's real.  it's raw.  it's messy.  it's hard.  it's amazing.

why am i sharing this?  i don't know.  probably as an explanation for silence...in this space, in your space, silence to emails that have been sent to me this winter asking how I am (thank you...they meant a lot to me but please understand why i couldn't really bring myself to respond at the time).  also i think because if i do come back to this space again, it will be different.  of that i'm sure.  no longer do i feel an urge to share just the finished, just the polished...the impersonal.  in fact, i feel no urge at all (i finished 3 big knitting projects this spring and had no desire whatsoever to post about them).  i do feel like sharing the process. the personal.  the raw.  the messy.  there are a few blogs i read just for inspiration...and that inspiration comes not from beautiful photos, lovely finished objects (although they have those)...but from the realness of the writing.  if i come back to this space, i hope to model it after those inspirational ladies (with my own unique flair thrown in of course!).  which may mean this is a space many of you no longer want to visit.  i'm okay with that...things change and evolve and we have to accept that.

i don't expect that what i've written here will help others... because one thing i've learned is that what works for others will not work for me.  elements of this and that of course...but as individuals we all need different things.  in fact, I wrote this weeks ago and couldn't bring myself to hit publish. and then, in that weird fate way, a couple days later, mel published a picture on her facebook page that said 'tell your story' and followed it with this commentary:  "Other people's words, those people who've written books and blogs and such, their wisdom can help, it can be a guide, but sooner or later it all comes down to your own life and the story you're living right now. And your own words? They're damn powerful. To others - you never know who will need the guidance and help of *your* words - and most of all, your own self. Write it down. Tell your story. It has an impact."  I immediately commented on the post saying that THIS is what i've been thinking about and i was still unresolved.  thinking on it a good bit the past couple of weeks, i'm ready to hit publish.  for better or worse. 

***footnote
while i do wholeheartedly recommend mel's Yoga For You program to anyone and everyone, i have to admit that the draw for me was mel.  given my personality, my quirks...i don't think i ever would have progressed/learned/opened up etc to someone I didn't know and trust.  as i said...the stars aligned.

if you believe in that kind of stuff.