When It Is Time To End Therapy

Three years ago, I started a journey—a journey through depression and anxiety. Like any journey, it has a beginning and an end. Well, maybe they are important way-points rather than a beginning and an end because the journey started many years ago and will continue for the rest of my life.

My journey to healing and life started with awareness. “Gayle, are you depressed?” my friend, Victoria, asked. I answered, “Yes, maybe I am,” after I thought about describing my day to her which included trying to decide whether to go to the grocery store or not.

The awareness of depression prompted me to seek counseling. I realized I was living in a box and I didn’t know how to escape it. My world had shrunken to my home and my family. I felt alone, ostracized and hurting. I knew that if I didn’t get help, I was on my way to becoming agoraphobic and never leave home.

I began seeing Dr. Anna and she gave me the tools I needed to move forward. She taught me how to deal with the depressive and anxious thoughts in my head and so much more. I am so thankful for Dr. Anna and her work as a therapist.

Over the past three years, I have:

·         Overcome a phobia of driving across bridges

·         Let go of perfectionism

·         Turned off the “you should, you need to” taskmaster in my head

·         Learned to give myself grace and compassion

·         Received the love of God, who loves me just because he loves me

·         Learned that life is uncertain and sometimes all we can do is accept it

·         Learned to say, “I trust you, Lord,” instead of trying to control

·         Connected authentically to my family and friends

·         Connected with people who have different backgrounds and beliefs than me

·         Embraced this crazy thing we call life

Today, at the end of the counseling session, Dr. Anna pulled out her phone and asked when I wanted to set the appointment for next month. I said, “I don’t think I want an appointment next month. I think I am ready.” She smiled and said, “That is the goal of therapy.”

I know I can call for an appointment any time and I probably will during the winter months. But, I also think I have the skills to cope with life’s ups and downs and my Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). I also have a great support system with friends and family. And I know how important is to keep connections and communication open.

I appreciate all of your support through this journey. Your stories have encouraged me. I will continue this blog, sharing things I’ve learned and what works for me in this life Beneath A Dappled Sky.

Accepting Feeling Tired

It has been a year since I began seeing a therapist for depression and anxiety. A year of getting over hard things, moving forward and self-discovery.  The depression is gone. Anxiety is a bit of a different animal. Something I now realize I’ve lived with much longer than I care to acknowledge. But it also is much better.

I am still learning new things. The latest is the importance of recognizing when I am tired. What is it about saying, “I feel tired,” in our society? Even to ourselves?

The other day, after teaching children at VBS, I came home and did some more things. That evening I was physically and emotionally tired. But I still thought there were some business things I should take care of that night. Or something. Shouldn’t I always be doing or thinking about something?

But as I concentrated on the thoughts rolling around in my head, I realized I was ruminating and obsessing. Lots of “you should” and “you need to” thoughts were coming up. Along with “you never…”

I noticed a difference in how I felt. Not only was I tired, but now I was starting the spiral. You know, the spiral from feeling vulnerable (uncertain) to shame (you are not enough) to depression (why even try?).

Now, I know from experience what happens when I go down the spiral. Those thoughts would stay with me throughout the night and I would wake up the next morning with a huge helping of anxiety and depression.

This was the first time I connected being tired with going down the spiral. Being tired contributed to my run-away thoughts.

So I stopped.

• I accepted that I felt tired. Exhausted.
• I made the choice to stop my thoughts. Everything I was thinking about could wait until the morning when I wouldn’t be tired and could think more clearly.
• And I relaxed. I sat in silence watching the sunset, watched some tv with my husband, took a bath and went to bed.  And I didn’t think about anything.
• Most of all, I realized when I rest and relax when I am tired, I am treating myself with grace and compassion. 

Love Is Patient. Love Is Kind.

My bucket of faith, hope and love

Several months ago, Dr. Anna asked me to write my insecurities on a Styrofoam cup. I wrote about my fears, disconnection, perfectionism, feared judgement and unmet expectations. Then she had me poke holes in the cup to drain my insecurities.

It felt good to drain my insecurities. At the bottom I wrote, “Every last drop of insecurity drained.”

On the drive home I thought about what I wanted to fill my cup with. And the words, “Faith, hope and love” came to me.

Yes, that is what I want poured into my cup. I want to overflow with faith, hope and love.

I opened my Bible when I got home and turned to 1 Corinthians 13. You know, the Love Chapter. If you are like me, then you read it as an outward action. Love is patient (with others). Love is kind (to others)…

For some reason I read it differently on that day:

Love is patient. (I can be patient with myself. The same way I would be with a friend.)

Love is kind. (I can be kind to myself. I can speak kindly, the way I would with a friend.)

Love is not easily angered; it keeps no record of wrongs. (Whoa. I don’t have to be angry with myself or remind myself of what I’ve done or not done every day. My mistakes don’t have to play over and over in my mind.)

 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in truth. (Depression lies. Satan lies. Anxiety lies. I rejoice in the truth. I seek the truth and dismiss the lies.)

Love always protects. (I protect the truth. I protect myself from lies.)

Love always trusts. (I trust myself and God.)

Love always hopes. (Through God, I see the best in me and always hope.)

Love always perseveres. (Don’t give up. Seek the truth and move forward. Stop living in the past.)

Love Never Fails.

I have lived a life believing the lies of perfectionism. Now, if you have seen my home or know me, you may laugh to think I struggle with being perfect. I fall on the other end of the spectrum. If I can’t do it perfectly, why do it at all? The All or Nothing Mentality.

Letting go of perfectionism is all about learning to be self-compassionate. Learning who I am. Trusting myself. Being willing to try and fail. Everything 1 Corinthians 13 says. 

No, it's not easy. In fact, my anxiety ratcheted right up this last month and I realized it was about perfectionism. That's when I bought the little pink bucket and wrote 1 Corinthians 13 on it. It helps to have a reminder around.

If you wonder about your level of self-compassion, you can take a test at http://selfcompassion.org/

If you can't love yourself, how can you love others openly and honestly?

When A Community Is Rocked By Suicide

Last Saturday, I sat in church for a service with many people from my community. None of us wanted to be there. We listened to Pastor Roger give a message around the question, “Why?” A question that will never be answered.

We all gathered together: the young man’s mother, father and stepmother. Aunts and Uncles. Cousins. Friends. Classmates. Parents of friends and classmates. Teachers. Bus drivers. Coaches. VBS teachers. Pastor. Church family.

Through tears, we watched a slideshow of pictures. Twenty-one years of life – a happy, smiling kid loving life. How do you leave out a photo when there will never be another?

After the service, we all hugged each other, bound together through grief and tears. As I hugged the young men and women from our community, I saw grief and unanswered questions in their eyes. The question, “Why,” weighs heavily.

But in the eyes of their parents, mixed with the grief, I saw fear.

Their question – “What if?”

The question and the fear are real. Made even larger in all of our minds because this is our tiny community’s fourth young adult to take his own life in the past 3 ½ years.

My first inclination is to fix our community. Fix all of the problems in the school, the churches, and the community organizations. Because, really, aren’t we all responsible for these young lives? Let’s point fingers and blame each other. Set up more programs. Fix it.

But then I thought of my own struggles with anxiety and depression. Pointing fingers and blaming others have done nothing to help me. Thinking I have any control to fix my community is futile.

The only person I have any control over is me. Not my husband, not my kids, not my extended family, not the people in the church, the school, or the community organizations. I only have control over me.

But my actions can change my community. I will engage with my community. I will build relationships. Connect with friends. Build trust. And hope.

I will live an authentic life. I will speak well of people. I will share my faith.

I will make the difficult phone call when someone is hurting. I will show up. Not to fix, but to love.

I will reach out to a trusted friend when I find myself sinking into depression or when anxiety hijacks my thoughts. I will name my emotions, try to understand them, and accept them instead of burying or numbing my emotions. I will seek counseling when I need more tools to move through depression and anxiety.

My hope in living an authentic and wholehearted life is to encourage both the young adults and the parents that there is hope. You are not alone. I struggle, but by being courageous, leaning on my faith in God, learning to know myself and gaining the tools I needed through seven months of counseling, I can live my life. Not someone else’s. My life.

My 3:00 a.m. Worry Time

3:00 a.m. – my worry time. I have learned 3:00 a.m. is also known as the “Witching Hour” or “Devil’s Time.” Hmm, sounds about right.

I awake from a deep sleep with anxiety. Sometimes a worry will pop into my mind without me even thinking it. If not, I will find one. Then I lie in bed and worry, like a dog with a bone.

Prayer seems like a good way to handle it. If I just pray about whatever I am worrying about, the worry will go away. Right?

Wrong. When I pray, I find I am just worrying over the problem in prayer. I don’t turn it over to God. I tell Him what He ought to do and how He ought to do it. Along with a deadline. Please, Lord?

When I am done praying, I don’t feel any differently than when I spent the time worrying.

My daughter recently moved across the country. I am happy and excited for her! But, I am a mom. And now I find my daughter on my mind when I wake at 3:00 a.m.

When I realized my prayers of worry and control were doing neither her nor me any good, I remembered some words a friend told me after a fearful time in my life.

In 1995, my husband, John, was accidently injured while working as a lineman for a rural electric company. A hot wire came in contact with the guy wire John was tying off on the ground. 7200 volts of electricity went through his body. The ER doctor met me at the door of the emergency room and told me they were monitoring his heart and kidneys for damage. John had a couple of bad burns on his fingers where the electricity entered his body. Thankfully, he recovered without any lasting damage. But I didn’t handle it so well.

I could no longer believe that God would protect my loved ones. I struggled when John returned to work. Would he walk through the door that night? I talked to my friend, Betty Johnson, about my anger towards God and my questions of why He didn’t protect John.

And I will never forget what Betty said: “Gayle, God never promised complete protection for your loved ones, but He does promise to be with you through whatever happens in life.”

God will be with me. He will never leave me alone.

Because of this, I can pray, “I trust you, Lord.”

This has become my go-to prayer when I begin to worry. I whisper the words, “I trust you, Lord” when I feel fearful. It is what I pray when I want to control a person or a situation.

I have learned that worry and fear are about control – ironically, the outcomes over which I usually have no control. How silly I am to think things should happen the way I think they should. Or that people should act the way I think they should.

Now when I wake up at 3:00 a.m. with worries, I have a routine:

Capture the thought. Rather than letting my thoughts go like a runaway train, I capture the thought, the worry. I make myself aware of it. Then I ask,

Is it rational or irrational? Once again, this is awareness. If I realize the thought is irrational (out of proportion, making something catastrophic or making leaps in logic); I stop it. I tell myself it is irrational and I will no longer think about it.

Do I have any control or not? If the thought is rational, I ask myself if I have any control over the situation or not. If yes, I can decide on one action to take during the day and leave it at that. If not, then I pray

“I trust you, Lord.” I trust that God, in His infinite wisdom, has a plan. I trust that He is in control. Not me. Him. And no matter what happens, I will still trust in God’s love, kindness, and mercy.

“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Cor. 10:5)

P.S.  This routine also works during the day!

Where Anxiety and Depression Meet

Every once in a while, I open up my journal and look back at where I was when I started this journey. Wow, I have come a long way.

Today I thought I’d share one of my early journal entries. I had told my therapist that I feel really anxious when I woke up in the morning. Dr. Anna had asked me to write down an example of how I talked to myself. Easier said than done. It took several days to be aware of what I was saying to myself. But, then early one morning I caught myself.

I get up at 5:45 a.m. to make my husband breakfast and pack his lunch and then I go back to bed, because I am NOT a morning person. But, for some reason, I thought I should be.
 
On May 20^th, I became aware of what I was thinking as I made John’s lunch. And I sat down and wrote it out after he left for work.

5/20

Lots of negative self-talk this morning. I want to go back to bed. But I’ve got lots to get done. I’ll go back to be and get up at 7:00. Yeah, right. You’ll sleep ‘til 8:00. You won’t get anything done anyway. I need a schedule or a routine. You never keep a schedule. You never do what you plan to do. You’ll plan it, but there’s always some reason you won’t do it. You never finish anything. If you schedule something, you’ll talk yourself out of it.

This is one paragraph of it. I remember sitting in shock after writing it. Did I really talk to myself that way? I wouldn’t talk like that to anyone else. There are two pages of this in my journal going over every task I needed to complete that day. No wonder I woke up feeling anxious! This verbal tennis match running in my head occurred every morning before I got out of bed and continued after I got up.

The first thing Dr. Anna did was give me permission to go back to bed and sleep. I obviously need my sleep. Sleep is important if you are depressed (and she said I wasn’t getting too much sleep –another symptom of depression). And, she gave me only one task for each day. My only check-box to mark is “What is your mood?” She also taught me to stop my thoughts. Realizing my thoughts were not normal or good helped me to stop them.

I learned to challenge a thought and ask its value. Is it true or not true? What’s the worst that can happen? What’s the best?

Brené Brown’s book, Daring Greatly, talks about scarcity – the thinking that we are never enough. She quotes Lynne Twist (author of The Soul of Money), “Before we even sit up in bed, before our feet touch the floor, we’re already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking something.”

I am enough. I don’t do things just like everyone else. I am learning to be myself and be comfortable with me. And the verbal tennis match in my head has stopped.

Related posts:

 A Time To STOP

Lord, Please Order My Day

“Lord, please order my day for me. I trust in You.”

As anxiety and depression took over my life, I found myself paralyzed. I couldn’t make decisions. I couldn’t even decide whether to go to the grocery store or not on a certain day! I had a to-do list each day that I woke up thinking about, agonizing over the “need to’s and should do’s.” Most of which went undone.

Several months after starting therapy, after I had learned to shut down my anxious thoughts or reframe them, I took a walk and thought about freedom, God renewing my mind, and ordering my day.

Asking God to order my day was a new thought to me. But the more I thought about it, the more I loved it!

• ·         To trust that what I do is His will
• ·         To trust that what I don’t do is His will
• ·         To live in freedom and not in chains
• ·         To live in God and not myself
• ·         To trust Him with my time, my writing, my service to Him, my relationships
• ·         To surrender my thoughts, my desires, my control, my anxieties, my depression to Him
• ·         To be aware of this trust and freedom, this new way of living

I have been asking God to order my day for two weeks now. The pressure is off! The anxiety and worries are gone. I love waking up in the morning now feeling rested and having hope and joy for my day.

My prayer this morning:

Lord, please order my day. Let what I do be your will and what I don’t do be your will. Bring the people into my day you want me to connect with. Let our interactions be your will, not mine. Keep my ego – my manipulations and desire for control out of the way. Let me be my authentic self, the one You created. Let your light shine through me today. I trust in You, in You alone.

Life Is Like A 1960's Western Television Series

Forest Gump said “My momma always said, Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are gonna get.” Well, I think life is like a 1960’s television western series. Good things and bad things happen in life. You deal with it, and then move on to the next episode.
  

Just think of Ben, Adam, Hoss and Little Joe on Bonanza. They spent their lives protecting the Ponderosa from swindlers, land grabbers, and a crazy con-man who thought he could “row” a boat across the ranch and claim the land as his own on a technicality. They wooed women, fell in love and, ALWAYS, lost their loves in tragic accidents or murder. Or else she really loved someone else. And sometimes the men were caught up in a case of mistaken identity, jailed for a crime they didn’t commit.

In the shows, the Cartwrights lived, loved and laughed. They fought, struggled and persevered. They grieved and learned to live again. Isn’t that what life is about?

Now, imagine if Bonanza was a true story. A person could not go from tragedy to tragedy, drama to drama, or from love to loss to love to loss constantly. Think of the years of therapy and medication the Cartwrights would need to even get out of bed in the morning!

And yet, that is what we often try to do. Something major happens in our life, then a tragedy, and more drama. Rather than taking the time to process our feelings and thoughts, we keep pushing through. We don’t have the luxury to get everything settled in one episode. Or we don’t have the resources.

But, then the re-runs play over and over in our mind. The movie reel never stops. We become angrier, more anxious, depressed or helpless. We isolate ourselves. The re-runs become debilitating. Especially when more than one episode plays at a time.

That is where therapy or counseling helps. We can tell the story to a counselor, but this time we allow ourselves to feel the pain, the hurt, the anger we may have avoided. A counselor can help us navigate through the feelings and move us towards processing the feelings.

And then, the counselor can help us “reframe” our experience. How did we grow from it? What was the best outcome? Sometimes the best outcome is that we survived the experience. But even seeing that can be enlightening.

My family and I have been through a lot of stuff the last few years. Even a thunderstorm with wind and lightning can set my nerves on edge and leave me feeling helpless. On the minor side of events, our old 5^th wheel camper blew over and was totaled in a microburst last summer and then our new one was struck by lightning this spring.

Through therapy, I have been reminded that just because something happened once, it doesn’t mean it will happen again. My mind has stopped replaying the episodes. I no longer drown in the pain, fear, panic, anger when I think about the past episodes. And I trust that whatever happens next is something we will make it through with God’s help. Because we do keep making it through.

Now that I’ve dealt with the re-runs, I am ready to face the new episodes. The good and the bad. Because that is life. Let's ride.

Conquering My Castlewood Canyon Bridge Phobia

Bridge? What bridge? I knew you would laugh when you saw the object of my phobia.

This is a photo of the Castlewood Canyon Bridge. I told you it takes 2-3 seconds to cross it.

When I realized I was depressed, the bridge was one of the things that came to mind. My box, my life, had become smaller. If I continued to cut things out of my life because of anxiety, then I wouldn’t even leave my house.

I managed to conquer my Castlewood Canyon Bridge phobia before I sought therapy. And it started with a fiction book, Dog Crazy, about an agoraphobic therapist who specializes in helping people who are grieving over the loss of a pet. In the book, the heroine overcomes her phobia using exposure therapy by taking a dog with her out the gate and around the block. She takes short walks over and over to desensitize herself.

Around the same time, I happened to catch an episode of The Doctors on phobias.  They had a man on who said he could make a phobia go away in an hour. I watched the show and one thing caught my attention. He said he “erases the emotional hard-drive.” That’s what I needed to do. Erase the bridge phobia from my emotional hard-drive.

When I thought about the bridge, I experienced the same panic again. I could feel my body clench and my heart begin to race. Over and over. I could almost see a red light flashing and a voice blaring, “WARNING! WARNING!”

I started by picturing the bridge in my mind and willing myself not to feel the panic. I imagined the beautiful scenery – the open highway, green grass, wildflowers, and Ponderosa pines. I saw myself driving down the road in my truck with some good music on and singing along. The bridge was coming, but I didn’t feel any panic. I focused on the highway on the other side, not on the bridge. And I did this regularly for a week or so, every time the bridge came to mind. Soon, I didn’t feel any panic associated with the bridge when I thought of it.

The day came when I started to Parker for an appointment and it was pouring down rain and hail. When I came to road 98, I planned to go straight. I didn’t want to cross the bridge in the rain. But, the weather was clear to the west and it looked like the hail continued to the north. OK, I would go over the bridge.

I started to feel the anxiety a couple of miles away from the bridge. I began to pray. Deep breathing – breathe in 1,2,3,4,5, hold it, breathe out 1,2,3,4,5. I turned on KLOVE radio and sang along. The anxiety subsided a little. The truck slowed to 55 as I neared the bridge. The wheels hit the seam of the bridge and I focused on the highway ahead of the bridge. Nothing. Nothing!!! I didn’t feel any panic! I couldn’t believe it. I knew the taste of victory.

Each time I crossed the bridge during the next month, I felt less anxiety. Now, I don’t even think of it when I cross it. I enjoy the scenery. And, now I know I have some control over my thoughts and my anxiety. 

My Bridge Phobia

Bonner Bridge to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Photo by my father, Ken Christison

You never expect to have a phobia. They just sneak up on you and shout, “Surprise!”

In 1990, we bought a 4-wheel drive Ford F-150 that was taller than the 2-wheel drive Chevy pickup I was used to driving. I didn’t think anything of it when I drove the new truck out east of town to our friends house. But I sure noticed it when I crossed the little one-lane wooden bridge near their house. Suddenly, the truck seemed like a monster truck with giant tires. My heart raced and I clenched the steering wheel. And I sighed with relief a second later when I reached the end of the bridge.

I didn’t think anything of it until we set out on a road trip from Colorado to North Carolina a few weeks later. I found myself watching for bridges when I drove, clenching the steering wheel over the bridge and sighing with relief when over the bridge. If the bridge happened to be on a curve, then I felt a little more panic.

Over the years, I began to drive less on our trips to the east coast. The bridges became BRIDGES (((shudder))) and I was certain the truck would decide to jump off the side of the bridge of its own volition. For some reason, I didn’t have any problem with my husband driving over bridges. The truck would only attempt suicide if I was driving.

First, I stopped driving in West Virginia. Then I stopped driving east of the Mississippi. The last trip we made, I only drove through Colorado and Kansas.

Thankfully, there aren’t many bridges in my part of Colorado and I don’t think anything about the bridges I drive over. Until last November…

I had a dental appointment in Parker and drove the back-roads to Highway 83. It started to snow a little. I happened to think of the bridge over Castlewood Canyon and thought I should have gone through Elizabeth. Especially with it snowing.

I started feeling anxious several miles before the bridge. I slowed down as I approached the bridge 65, 55, 45. My breathing became shallow, I clenched the steering wheel and my heart began racing the moment I hit the seam of the bridge. I expected to breathe a sigh of relief at the end of the 3 second bridge (yes, it takes 2-3 seconds to cross this bridge). The relief didn’t come. The panic stayed with me and gradually subsided.

In a matter of three seconds, my world changed. I knew I could not drive over the bridge feeling panic every time. So, I would no longer drive over the Castlewood Canyon Bridge. Case closed.

Stay tuned for next week’s Part 2 – Conquering My Castlewood Canyon Bridge Phobia

A Time To STOP

The first thing I did when I realized I was depressed was STOP. Basically, I decided to take a vacation; a vacation from the anxious thoughts in my head and a vacation from the “shoulds” and “need to do’s” in my life to deal with the depression and anxiety.

STOP became Space, Time, Openness, and Power to me.

Space

Space became a very important concept to me. Somehow, I had boxed myself in and I needed space to find me and to find God. When I shut down the anxious thoughts and endless to-do list in my head, I began to find space. Space to think about God and space to think about me.

Time

I gave myself the gift of time: time to read, time with God, time to laugh and play with my baby granddaughter, time to take walks and see the green grass, the clouds against the blue sky, the wildflowers peeking through the grass, time to play the guitar and sing, and time to play the hammered dulcimer. I spent evenings with family and friends.

Openness

I began to open my heart again. I became open and honest with myself and aware of my thoughts. I tried to be compassionate with myself, to think of what I would say to someone else going through a hard time and tell it to myself.

Power

Realizing I was empty and weak, I depended on God for power. Not my power, but His. Not in my time, but His time. I gave up control and handed over the reins.

Stopping was the very best thing I could do for myself. I initially thought I would take a break for a week, which turned into two weeks, then a month. By the end of the month, I had learned many things about myself. My new understandings were helpful, but I realized I didn’t have the tools I needed to move forward.

That is when I contacted a counseling center to get help. And I am so glad I did.

Beneath A Dappled Sky

It's been a while since I wrote about my depression and anxiety. A month ago I realized while I had gained a lot of understanding of myself since I'd become aware of my depression and anxiety, I needed tools to move forward. I started seeing a Christian psychologist who is a God-send for me. She listens and she is giving me the tools I need to shut down my anxious thoughts and helping me to live the way God intended me to live. I am learning to tell the difference between realistic and unrealistic thoughts. To be aware of what I am thinking and of my negative thoughts. This awareness is hard to do when you've spent a lifetime ignoring and denying those thoughts, keeping your mind occupied with anything to avoid them. Now I know to stop them.

I've discovered I need lots of space in my life. Space to think, space to spend time with God, space to write. No schedules or to-do lists. Freedom to work the way I work. Not the way others work.

And I'll spend more time enjoying the dappled sky, watching my nephew run and play, laughing with my granddaughter and loving every moment spent with family and friends. I must say, life is good.

(From my Facebook Profile June 9, 2015)

Are You Depressed?

"Gayle, are you depressed?" my best friend asked me last week. "Depressed, no. Well, maybe a little." Then as I thought about what I had just told her - how I spent all day Wednesday deciding whether or not to go to the grocery store. I answered, "Yeah, I am depressed."

Why is it so hard to see it and admit it? I have figured for years that I have a little seasonal affective disorder. In October I am ready to hibernate and emerge in the spring. But this year, it seems to have gotten a little worse lately. I called my friend up the next day. "Gee, thanks, Vic. I may have been depressed, but I wasn't sad until you pointed it out."

For me, the red flag is decision-making. I remember going on vacation with our toddler and baby in 1990. I was supposed to be packed and ready to go when my husband,John, came home from work. He found me crying in the living room, surrounded by empty suitcases and piles of clothes. Since it was October, I couldn't decide whether to take summer clothes or sweaters to North Carolina. My dear husband said, "Well, we are driving a truck. Pack them all." And we did. While we were on vacation, I realized I probably had postpartum depression. That was my first experience with depression.

What am I going to do? Go on a daily treasure hunt for joy, happiness, grace, and love. I'm going to sit in the sun and read a good book. Go for walks with friends. Laugh and play with my grandbaby and drink in her baby smell. Take pictures of baby calves. Sing songs and play the guitar. Set up the hammered dulcimer and play it again. I am going to the mountains with my love and ride 4-wheelers. Camp with my family. Sing around the campfire. Go bowling at Bass Pro with family and friends. Read the Bible and pray. Watch The Voice with Barry and Victoria. Eat taco salad and visit with our kids. I am doing most of those things now, but I'm going to savor them, drink them in as though they are life-giving, which they are.

What am I not going to do? Worry about what I am not doing or getting done. Think I have to be doing something, anything so I can be someone or anyone. And when I am ready, I will know what is essential to my life.

(I first posted this on my Facebook profile on April 6, 2015.)