She Invented the Wheel

Spring always comes.  Winter always ends.

When I watch the birds and squirrels get ready for their new family members, I wonder, “How do they keep their optimism? It’s icy-cold outside, blowing like hell and they are out there singing and preparing for spring.”

I thought how humans think negatively first and then work to the optimism. Maybe we were optimistic as a species at one time, but in order to survive we became pessimistic.  Maybe our optimism didn’t serve us in our survival.

If anyone has suffered depression either personally or contagiously through a loved one, you have some idea on how hard it is for a depressed person to think that there’s such a thing as a silver lining in a cloud.  Or that the sun really is behind the cloud even if it’s not visible. 

Even if we see year after year after year that one season will end and the other will come up next behind it.  Even if we know morning always comes.  Even if we have witnessed the miracle of a birth.

I’ve sparred with depression for years.  It’s a strong-willed beast.  It’s powerful enough to push ahead of the line and demand to be first.

I will never say I know how to make depression be nice and wait its turn.  I can say I’ve learned strategies to keep it from pushing to the front and staying there.  I’m learning how to politely tell depression, “It’s not all about YOU right now! Take your turn.”  

Those strategies were not easy to learn.  I learned them by using them and noticing how the outcomes make life seem better—- more enjoyable.

One strategy I’m NOT referring to is, “Just forget about it, it will go away.”  That has never worked for me. 

My Son, Holden's Balcony in Görlitz, Germany

I’ve been practicing German and it takes work. Hard, diligent work. I can’t make those sounds without someone to guide me. I have to work on it every day or I feel like I lose some leverage.

I think working on depression is about the same.  It takes hard work.  Daily practice.  I definitely have to have therapeutical help to keep me on track.  I need to see a counselor to be reminded I never have to start at the beginning again (that big, dark, deep pit of depression) if I keep practicing the strategies. They will help me get past whatever is trying to push my happiness out of the way to be first in line. 

Maybe our ancestors were working so hard on hunting and gathering they couldn’t keep part of their mind open for optimism.  That daydream of being happy or living with some joy could have cost them their life.  So they damned every, slow, stinkin’ minute of their day so they could focus on the task at hand-—survival.

I put my bet on the woman who invented the wheel.  She had hopes and dreamed of life being easier.  She wanted to survive, yeah.  But she also wanted some free time so she could jump in the river and play.

My Danish Friend's Art-Suspended From the Ceiling
(She's Soaring!)