I’m self-indulgently reminiscing each Friday about my happy experiences of twenty years ago. This week’s piece is from a column I wrote on September 6, 1991: 

Picture a bright, hot, cloudless August afternoon. We actually had a few this year so it shouldn’t be too hard. Now picture me coming out of my house, clad in a tank top and shorts (that may be a little tougher to picture, but please refrain from laughing as you do so), admiring my flower bed resplendent with blooming – better make that “wilting” – pansies, and full, brilliant orange marigolds; and then skittering barefoot across the shimmering hot concrete driveway as I make my way to my mailbox. As I open the door to the mailbox, which incidentally is still not speaking to me, my greatest hope is that someone has mailed me a tall iced tea in a frosted glass with a fresh lemon slice twisted decorously atop the rim. Instead, I reach into the box and find… a Christmas catalog!!!

Talk about befuddlement. But hey, there are a limited –albeit plentiful – number of shopping days ‘til Christmas, so I find a cool spot in the shade and delve right into the toy section of the catalog. Maybe if I find some toys that both the kids and I like, I won’t mind so much having to pick them off the floor every day.

My girls are so young that they’re relatively easy to please. As long as it’s pink, Catherine will love it. And as long as it is sturdy enough to withstand a tug-of-war between my two little angels, Annie might actually get to play with it sometimes. 

I’m glad I’m starting early. Toys have changed since I was a kid, so the selection is more complex than merely weighing the relative virtues of Lincoln Logs and building blocks. 

I remember talking dolls that said, “Hi, my name is ____.” Or “Would you like to play with me?” These days one hip chick says “You got it, Dude,” and a doll named “Urkel” is quoted to quip “Hee-Hee-Hee, Snort!” I guess I don’t watch enough TV to keep up with doll linguistics.

The stuffed animals haven’t changed much over the years, except for a few novelties. The “patch-up pets” kitty is kind of cute. It comes with a medical kit and bandages so kids can play doctor. The doll also “comes with her own ‘injuries,’” but I bet any kid can provide injuries that that stuffed kitty never dreamed possible in all her nine lives. 

Then of course there is the “Armed Forces Bear” that vaguely resembles General Norman Schwartzkopf.

It’s interesting how toys reflect our current culture and the state of civilization. As product of the ‘60s, I enjoyed a kit that taught you to grow your own sprouts. Now in this environmentally conscientious era, one can purchase  a kit for recycling old newspaper into notepaper and envelopes.

Another environmental offering is an “Earth Book” which “cheerfully illustrates” how to check detergent phosphate levels and test water for oil pollution. Or you can get the science kit and learn how to contain an oil spill and study the effects of acid rain on plants. What fun.

The photo of the science kit shows two plant containers. The one on the right, next to the “normal water” packets, holds a thriving green plant. The container on the left, with the ”acid rain” packets propped against it, has a browned stub of a plant poking from the dirt. Wicked stuff. Maybe we should all send science kits to our favorite legislators for Christmas this year.

The toy I like most is the pretend tool kit. I can envision hours of fun teaching Catherine to replace a leaking wax seal on a toilet, or helping Annie build a bed frame when she outgrows her crib. Better yet, if I can interest them in woodworking, they can just build their own toys. Then I won’t need to look at Christmas catalogs at all. I’ll just go to the nearest lumber store and stock up on wood, nails, and glue. It may be a little harder to gift wrap, but I’m willing to try.

I’m beginning to see why the Christmas catalogs appear so early. It takes about four months to decipher all the new trends in toys. I can also see why a lot of people wait until December 24th to do their shopping. It’s just too darn tiresome to deal with until you absolutely have to. 
 
Now picture me going into the kitchen to make myself that tall, cool glass of iced tea… Christmas can wait.

   #  #  #

These articles are like time capsules. Norman Schwartzkopf? Urkel?  “Stormin’ Norman” is retired now and lives in Tampa, Florida. Jaleel White, who played “Urkel” in a ‘90s television series, is more recently known for his TV appearances in the 14th season of Dancing with the Stars. Rumor has it he got into a big fight with his professional dancing partner, Kim, but that has absolutely nothing to do with me or depression, so I’ll just leave that one alone. 

All the best, 
Maggie

Sebastian takes it all in stride. He’s like the antithesis of Thursday, calm and sweet and friendly.

Thursday is in the “mature” stage of kitty ages. At 9 years old, she’s  not young by any means, but she still has the “senior” and “geriatric” stages to look forward to. She seems to be in good health, but she is definitely mellowing as far as her activity level goes. She was never much of a hunter, but now she doesn’t hardly leave the yard. Which suits me just fine. Both of my cats are indoor/outdoor kitties, and I worry about them bothering my neighbors or getting run over.
 
The woman next door to me started flicking her extinguished (I hope) cigarette butts into my yard a while back. I wondered if she thought that was okay since my cat was in her yard all the time. Some kind of quid pro quo mentality, perhaps. Being the non-confrontational person that I am, I opted to not try to discuss her rationale with her. Instead, I started collecting the cigarette butts and placing them back on her side of the fence. I figured if it was some kind of retaliation for my cat’s behavior, she could always just place the cat back on my side of the fence. Quid pro quo. 
 
Eventually, even though we never discussed it, she stopped tossing her cigarette butts over the fence. Unfortunately, I really have no way to stop Sebastian from climbing the fence and entering her yard. At this point, I can’t convert him into an indoor cat. He would be miserable. So I’m glad that at least Thursday has stopped prowling the neighborhood so much.

I tend to relate to Thursday. I wouldn’t exactly say I’m a curmudgeon, and I don’t lie on the floor and take swats at the kitties when they pass by. But I don’t really mind too much being by myself a lot, and I would rather stay at home than venture out. I call it being mellow. My psychiatrist calls it isolating. 

I saw my psychiatrist today and she pointed out that my reluctance to get out and about will only increase the more I indulge it. She had all sorts of ideas as to how I could get involved with more people, and I had all sorts of reasons as to why her ideas wouldn’t work. In the end, she basically said it was up to me to determine the quality of life I want to have. Hmmm. Touche.
 
I look at Thursday laying on the floor taking one of her numerous catnaps of the day, and I think that’s not all bad. But for all I know, she
could be secretly running out and partying with the opossums when I’m not looking. It’s always the quiet ones you have to watch out for. 
 
Thursday’s not a real go-getter, and neither am I. But maybe I should aspire to more in life than unlimited catnaps. I’ll take it under consideration. In the meantime, Thursday has suddenly shifted into her “adore me” mode and has jumped up on the couch to come and regale me and my computer with a new covering of fur. She can be a cutie when she wants to. And I do adore her, but cautiously. She has learned that she can bite the hand that feeds her, and get away with it. 
 
Ah, well. Time for a nap.
Maggie

Here it is, my 50th consecutive blog post! I know, I just celebrated one month, and I’ll probably celebrate 2 months, too. And my 100th blog post, of course. I’ll take all the celebrating I can get.

I haven’t done much of 50 consecutive anythings in my life ( I’m not the best example of perseverance), so the fact that I’ve shown up for 50 days in a row to share my thoughts and feelings on something as personal to me as my depression, is a great accomplishment.

Okay, I’m done patting myself on the back. 

Now, having said all that… I’m thinking about cutting down my posts from the current daily publication to maybe three times a week or so. I’m not really getting burned out, but I do feel the pressure every day to come up with something. On some days it’s easy, on other days it’s not. So I’m going to cut myself some slack.

Which could be a bad move for me. What’s the saying, give someone an inch and they’ll take a mile? It has been a great discipline for me to sit down each day and search my mind and heart and soul (and Wikipedia) and then put what I found into words. It’s been a very therapeutic undertaking as well. My concern is that perhaps knowing I’m not obligated to post something will give me just the excuse  I need to forego any introspection. We’ll see.

I’m going to try to keep to a three times a week schedule, something along the lines of Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. If I get super inspired, I’ll write more frequently, but I’ll try to at least get in three. 
 
And then I’ll have to think up something to do with all the time this will free up for me. It takes me kind of a long time to write these posts, believe it or not. Maybe I’ll do more reading. I went online to join a Meetup group yesterday, and they had a bunch of questions I had to answer before my membership would go through. This particular group was for writers, and one of the questions was, “What are your three most favorite books of all time?” Well, that was a stumper for me. With my poor memory, I can barely remember even reading three books, let alone recalling which ones they were and whether or not I liked them. 
 
So I went to my bookcases and looked for titles that struck me as something I may have enjoyed or been impressed with at one point or another. And I figured if I still had the book in my bookcase, I must have liked something about it. The three books that came out the winners were Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda; The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell; and Chris Imbo’s Peak 10 Fitness, by – you guessed it – Chris Imbo. Probably not the literary giants that the Meetup group was looking for, but what can I do? Make something up? In retrospect, maybe that would have been better. 
 
I imagine the group leader has had a chance to read my info by now and I haven’t gotten any emails telling me that I’ve been banned from the group, so that’s a good sign. Maybe I’ll start out by reading those three books again just in case there’s a Meetup group quiz later on. 

Enough rambling. I’ll catch you on Friday if not tomorrow. Maybe daily writing is an ingrained habit that I won’t be able to stop doing. That would be a fun twist to the plot. 
 
Take care,
Maggie

I got even more excited when I realized it’s almost the end of this month! I would only have four days to psych myself up for this challenge if I was going to participate. But I really need a kick in the pants to get my eating habits back in line, so I was determined to go for it.  

And then I paid a little closer attention to the bold red lettering on the big logo that says "Take the challenge OCTOBER UNPROCESSED 2012." Whew!! I’ve got a whole month to prepare for this. And so have you! 
 
Avoiding processed foods is a big tenet of the Paleo Diet philosophy. So if I were keeping to the eating rules that I had aspired to in July when I wrote the post about Ice Cream Day, I would be way ahead of the game. But that’s not exactly the case. I’ve let my diet slip away into the Twilight zone of unpronounceable ingredients, decades-long shelf lives, and (gasp!) fast food drive throughs. 
 
So what’s involved in this challenge? It’s totally uncomplicated. We pledge that, for the month of October, we will refrain from eating processed foods. The only potentially tricky part is in defining what “processed” means.  Andrew has made it simple for us. He has “The Kitchen Test” and explains that “If you pick up something with a label (if it doesn’t have a label, it’s probably unprocessed), and find an ingredient you’d never use in your kitchen and couldn’t possibly make yourself from the whole form, it’s processed.”

That doesn’t mean you have to make everything from scratch; it just means that you would be able to make it if you were so inclined (without the use of your science lab chemistry kit, that is). Easy peasy.

To learn more and to take the pledge, hop on over to eatingrules.com. It’s free and I’m not even getting anything out of telling you about it (except good cholesterol karma). Mind you, I have some differing opinions than Andrew on what healthy eating consists of, but as long as he’s not championing an “eat only processed foods all month” campaign, then I think it’s a good cause. 

So gird your loins, people, and get ready for an unprocessed October! 

Maggie

I was listening this morning to a Pandora music station based on one of my old time favorite bands, the Ozark Mountain Daredevils. Included in the lineup was the band’s song “Chicken Train.” I was in a contemplative mood, and so I listened intently to the words and tried to figure out their true meaning. Here are the lyrics to the first verse of the song:

Try as I might, I just couldn’t assign any significant meaning to these lyrics. And I really tried. I finally conceded that sometimes lyrics are just lyrics. They don’t always have to have deep philosophical meanings behind them. They can just be. In this case, they can just be fun.  

And that epiphany about the Ozark Mountain Daredevils’ lyrics leads us right to Sigmund Freud. I’m sure you see the connection, but if not, I’ll elaborate. 
 
Freud, considered to be the "Father of Psychoanalysis," had a penchant for focusing on the sexual aspect of... well, of everything. He believed that sexual drives were the most important motivating force in adult life. He managed to find phallic symbolism just about everywhere. At some point along the way, his astute followers questioned him as to the psychoanalytical meaning behind his frequent cigar smoking. Freud is quoted as having informed them that, “Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.” 
 
So lyrics can just be lyrics and cigars can just be cigars. And something that I need to continually remind myself is that sometimes low moods are just low moods. 

At times when my mood begins to drop, I get kind of panicky about it. Is this going to be the onset of another major slide? Am I going to hit rock bottom again with my depression?  Is this going to be the time that I won’t manage to recover?

I have to stop myself from these fatalistic musings and recognize that everyone has their low spots. Everyone has their off days, times when they feel down or sad or melancholy without really knowing why. And eventually the mood lifts and they move on. I should not expect myself to be the exception. Life has its rhythms. If it weren’t for the lows, how could we appreciate the highs? 
 
So how do I know the difference between a temporary dip in mood and the onset of a slide into depression? I don’t. The important thing for me is to not jump to the assumption of the worst case scenario. When I do that, I can be setting myself up for a very detrimental  self-fulfilling prophesy. 

I need to look at what’s going on in my life. There may be a very simple reason behind my low feelings. You may have heard of the acronym HALT, representing four things to look for when our mood is lagging. HALT stands for hungry, angry, lonely and tired. If we address those issues, chances are our mood will easily stabilize. Or we can review the past 24 hours. Did we feel hurt by someone? Misunderstood? Slighted? Often the feeling can be traced back to some unfavorable interaction with someone in our family, or a co-worker, or the jerk that cut us off in traffic this morning. 
 
There are so many variables that can lead to a low mood that we can’t even begin to imagine every scenario. Maybe the best thing to do is give our feelings the benefit of the doubt by not assuming the worst. If the low mood is a symptom of something more sinister, we will find out soon enough. In the meantime we can listen to some country/rock/folk tunes without worrying about the lyrics. That may nip the whole thing in the bud right there. Either that or smoke a cigar. 

All the best,  
Maggie

I’m still in a funk today. I feel guilty writing when I’m feeling down.  As if this blog about depression is supposed to be all roses and sunshine. I guess if I’m going to stay true to myself, I need to share the stumbles as well as the successes. And today I’m stumbling. 

I read or heard or saw something awhile back that said we should always look at our negative thoughts and ask ourselves, “Is it true?”  If I’m thinking that something is just awful and that because of whatever it is, my whole life is ruined, it may help to stop and examine that thought for a moment instead of resigning ourselves to a ruined life. We may want to challenge that thought by asking “Is it true?”

When we are depressed, we become masters of illusion. We can take a small incident and turn it into a major catastrophe. We can take a complement and turn it into a backhanded insult or even a lie. We can take a bump in the road and turn it into a massive mountain. The problem is that we don’t realize what we are doing. The illusions we are creating for ourselves seem to be the absolute truth. And if we are really good illusionists, we can make others believe that our misconceptions are reality as well. 

I feel like I’m in two places at once. I can talk about how we make molehills into mountains, and about how we shouldn’t do that type of catastrophizing, and yet, when I look at my problems my mind tells me that they are the exception. I really am going to lose my house and end up on the streets, sleeping beneath bridges and laying on street vents for heat. I’m never going to find a job that I can do without landing myself back in the hospital overstressed and depressed. And if I end up in the hospital again, I’m never going to be able to snap back out of my depression. 
 
So to break those illusions, I need to ask myself, “Is it true?” Well, I really am facing losing my house. That one’s probably true. But does it inevitably lead to homelessness, or might there be alternatives before I end up on the street? There probably are. 

Is it true that I will never find a job that I can do and still remain healthy? I don’t know for sure what is going to happen on that front, so no, it’s not true that that is unquestionably what is going to happen. And if I do find a job and the job is stressful, does that automatically mean I’m not going to be able to handle it and will end up hospitalized? No. That’s very negative speculation. But if I do become hospitalized again, is that my death knell? No. I’ve managed to come out of it each time so far, and chances are that if I end up being that bad off again, I will again manage to dig my way out. 
 
The problem with these “illusions” is that there are a lot of “coulds” and “mights” in there. I don’t know what is going to happen. It’s not as cut and dried as some other negative thoughts. 

Take the thought “I’m always wrong” for example. That statement can be questioned with logic. Always? You have never once done or said or thought something that was “right?” Surely you have, and so the “always wrong” illusion falls away. Was it true? Absolutely not.  But that’s an easy one.

See? I’m making my problems out to be the exception. My issues are unsolvable, and therefore the very worst speculation is certainly the way things are going to turn out for me. I think part of my problem is figuring out what the next step is supposed to be. Is it true that my problems are unsolvable? No, but then where do I find the solutions? It’s the frustration of not knowing that keeps me spinning my wheels, and that keeps the illusion alive. 
 
And so I’m struggling. There might be some positive steps I could take today to help my situation, but I’m not seeing them right now. If I were a magician, maybe I could just make my problems disappear. 

But that, too, would be an illusion. 
Maggie

Which apparently means I’m living in the past and the future, but not doing so well with the present.  At least according to Lao Tzu that’s what that means. 

After the next five weeks, I have no foreseeable income. I’ve already written about this, but it is what’s on my mind, and it makes it difficult to focus on new blog post ideas. I have a Word document with about seven pages of ideas; there just aren’t any that seem appealing today. 

It’s times like these when I just want to hole up and give in to whatever fate brings me. But I doubt that Fate – without some participation on my part – is going to bring me anything of much use. Giving in usually doesn’t produce good results.

And so I try to practice what I preach and turn to the ten Basics I’ve been taught: good food, good sleep, making sure to take my meds, laughter, relaxation, exercise, affirmations/positive thinking, spirituality, journaling and reaching out. I’ve discussed four of the “basics” in my posts so far. Let’s see how I’m faring with them today.

It’s noon and so far I’ve had a mocha and a scone to eat, not necessarily “good” food as far as being healthy for me. I should go eat lunch, but I’m just not hungry yet. Good sleep? I’m babysitting my grand puppy Finnigan, and he decided he just had to see me at 4:30 this morning. I never got back to sleep after that. Meds? I haven’t taken my a.m. meds yet. I guess I’ll go do that now.

Okay, I’m back. Where was I? Ah, yes, laughter. I still haven’t gotten that one figured out. It is amusing to watch the dog and cat play together, so maybe that counts. Relaxation: the Basics handout they give us at the intensive outpatient program states that relaxation is “any activity that slows breath, calms the mind, relaxes muscles and lets your heart rate slow down.” I’ll do a post about relaxation soon, probably. But for now, I’m going to need to make a concerted effort to plan something calming today.

What’s next? Exercise. I took the dog on a walk this morning, so I’m going to count that. Depending on how antsy he gets this afternoon, we may go out again. Next on the list is affirmations. That’s so hard right now. I’m going to skip that one, because… well, because I just don’t want to do them. Maybe I should make that a blog topic real soon, too. We supposedly learn more when we try to teach something. Not that I’m teaching, but I will need to focus on it if I’m going to write about it. 
 
Spirituality: I’ll think about that one. Journaling : I suppose writing this post counts for that. And reaching out: no plans for that. That’s one of my major downfalls when I start to slide. I can isolate better than a bear can hibernate. 
 
So, I’m aware of the basics, but implementing them on days like this is a real challenge. At the treatment program, every afternoon they had us write down one small goal for each of the ten basics, some simple step to be completed within the next 24 hours. And then on the following day, we looked at our goals to see whether we accomplished them or not. It’s a good accountability tool, if used earnestly. 

Actually, I’m feeling a little better just since beginning to write this. Maybe thinking about short term goals helps to bring us back to the present. I’m not exactly feeling the peace that Lao Tzu refers to. I still have no clue as to how I'm going to sustain myself after next month. But at least I’m hungry now, and that’s a start. I’m off to find some “good” food. 

Bon appetit,
Maggie

Here’s my first installation of the Friday Flashback series, where I am posting  articles that I wrote in the early ‘90s. They are teaching me lessons about how to enjoy the small things in life. And the bigger things, too.

So, without further ado, here’s my column from August 9, 1991:

Talking Mailbox

“That’s some mailbox you have,” my husband enthused upon returning from one of his first trips to the local post office since our wedding. As a newly merged household, we were still in the “yours” and “mine” mind set, and he hadn’t yet gotten accustomed to the idea that my mailbox was actually now his, too. 
 
I’ve noticed that newlyweds provide a perfect example of the “halo effect,” where anything even remotely connected to one’s beloved bride or groom is bestowed with the same adoration and devotion as is lavished upon the newly acquired spouse. At least until the proverbial “honeymoon” is over. Then, those selfsame previously adored qualities transform into pet peeves that make said spouse wonder in amazement at how he or she could have overlooked such a glaringly obvious personal flaw.

Even if we were still “honeymooners,” though, I thought he was stretching it a bit far to be displaying such interest in my post office box. I mean, I did try to clear the junk mail out on a regular basis, so I suppose it was fairly neat and tidy in there. But it’s not like I had hung miniature lace curtains in the window or stuck a potted bonsai plant in one corner.

“What’s so special about my mailbox?” I ventured to query.

“It talks!”

“It talks?” Now, I had known my mailbox to have a few eccentricities in its day. For example, if I opened it on a windy day at the precise moment that some other postal patron was opening the front door to the building, my mail would be sucked back out of the box and would drop out of sight (and out of reach) onto the floor behind the wall of boxes. (Does that sound familiar to anyone, or am I the only one this has ever happened to?)

After this unexpected twist in the usually mundane task of retrieving mail, I would be left with a dilemma of either (A) going up to the front desk and sheepishly inquiring if one of the fine postal employees  might graciously retrieve my mail from their inner sanctum – where they would find it scattered all over kingdom come, or (B) just leaving the building surreptitiously and letting them ponder as to how my mail happened to jump out of the box and onto the floor. I usually opted for the latter recourse. It seemed altogether less embarrassing. 

Then there was the time when I reached in to retrieve my mail and a hand reached in from the other side and pulled it back... Aha, maybe this talking mail box was explainable after all.

“What did my mailbox say?” I asked.

“It said, ‘Hi, I’m your talking mailbox.’”

“Uh-huh, and did the voice sound vaguely familiar, kind of like the postmaster?” 
 
“Yes, it sounded exactly like her,” my husband admitted.

So that was it. Another one of the postmaster’s fun touches that actually made going to collect a bundle of bills and a bushel of brochures addressed to “occupant” almost a pleasant undertaking. The postmaster was my mother’s best friend, and I was actually named after her, so I (and my mailbox) got the postmaster’s personal attention sometimes. It’s a small town. 
 
Even after I moved out of that town and had to relinquish my talented post office box, I continued to find occasional excuses to stop in and say hi. I brought my second newborn baby in to meet the postmaster (Really! It just looked like I was trying to mail the crying, colicky bundle of joy away. Someone saw stamps on the baby’s forehead? Someone saw me try to push her through the mail slot? Lies! Vicious lies!)

I’m almost certain I will never have a talking mailbox again. It has never been the same since I moved to a rural delivery route. I’ve talked to that tin tube on a post ‘til I was blue in the face, and it has never so much as given me the time of day. I guess if I’m ever going to win the admiration of my spouse again, I’ll have to resort to the bonsai décor idea. Or maybe I could wallpaper the box interior. Do you suppose I can find something in a nice shade of manila? I’ll work on that. 

  #  #  #

Thanks for reading. Enjoy your Friday, 
Maggie

I received an email the other day, whose subject line said, “Stay Connected with your Life.” I thought that sounded like a wonderful concept, so I opened up the email. It turned out to be an advertisement for cell phone products and services. The cell phone company’s solutions to staying connected included using a digital personal assistant, a phone camera, and a slide out keyboard for texting friends. 

So all my “connecting” solutions are to be found in a cell phone – one with a slide out keyboard, of course. I can now plan my day without talking to anyone about it, send photos of what I’m doing instead of actually doing it with someone, and text people instead of speaking with them in person or even through a phone call. 

I find it interesting that an ad for a telephone doesn’t even mention using it to call someone. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I still like to talk with people sometimes, maybe even see them once in a while. What kind of life are we “staying connected with” if we don’t talk to people anymore?
 
I’m not opposed to cell phones. They do come in handy for dealing with emergencies. When I had a flat tire while taking my children to school one morning, I was able to call my husband, who assured me he would come and save me – after he took a shower. So I waited at the side of the road until my knight in shining armor showed up and changed the tire for me. My husband arrived shortly after that. 

And it is nice to have a camera on the cell phone to take photos any time we want, not just when we happen to have lugged our camera along (although digital cameras are getting tinier and tinier, too). It’s nice when my daughter sends me photos of all the cute things that my grand puppy does.  Maybe that is a form of staying connected with life. 

We’ve come a long way with telephone technology. At SearchMobileComputing.com we are told that the first cell phone, produced by Motorola, came out in 1983, weighed 2 pounds, had to be recharged after a half-hour of talk time, and sold for $3,995. 

A quick online search today found cell phones weighing as little as 1.25 ounces or 35g, talk times up to 6 hours, and prices as low as $14. It showed phones that you can wear like a watch and phones used as key fobs. There could be greater extremes out there, but I thought those examples were mind-boggling enough. Does anyone remember wall phones with cords that you had to dial? And they had to be wired into the house by telephone lines? 

I guess I’m digressing from my point about staying connected with life. I think actual face to face contact (I guess they call it “face time”now) is important and, despite all of our new-fangled capabilities, sometimes it’s good to step back and enjoy the personal touches of relating to someone in“meatspace”  (as opposed to “cyberspace”…what would I do without Wikipedia?).  
 
While I love to have photos of my grand puppy sent to my phone, I still like to see the little guy for some face time in meatspace. (With my awesome new vocabulary, I'm just too cool for school.) I like to see my daughters and hear their voices. It’s a challenge for me to connect to very many people because of my avoidant personality disorder (yeah, I have all sorts of diagnoses). But I do realize the value in it. 

So I’m off to see my therapist today for reals, in person. Then I might go to the “brick and mortar” grocery store to shop. I may even use my telephone to talk to someone. After that I’ll probably send some text messages, email some people and check on Facebook to see what my friends are up to. If you can’t beat ‘em you may have to join ‘em. Or at least meet them halfway. 

Keep in touch,
Maggie

Wow, what a letdown I had this week. I was reading one of my favorite blogs, Get Rich Slowly (which was initially written by JD Roth who happens to live in my neck of the woods and who’s a CrossFitter – how much more cool can you get?) and there was an article (not written by JD) which mentioned that it’s Financial Literacy Month. I was pretty stoked about writing my own blog post about Financial Literacy Month. I know this is a blog about depression, but hardly anything depresses me more than my finances, whether they are literate or not, so I thought I could make the topic fit. 

Imagine my dismay when I looked into it further and discovered that National Financial Literacy month is actually in April, not August. Wikipedia tells us that the US Senate passed Resolution 316 in March of 2004, which officially recognized April as National Financial Literacy Month. As if that weren’t enough, in a 2011 proclamation, President Barack Obama also named April as National Financial Literacy Month.  I’m not sure about the intricacies of resolutions vs. proclamations, but proclamations sound way more important with their “in witness whereof” and “authority vested in me” verbiage. 

So now I’m in a quandary. Do I go ahead and observe Financial Literacy Month now, or do I wait until April, by which time I probably won’t have any finances left to observe? Another possibility is to move to Canada and observe their National Financial Literacy Month in November. But making that move would only serve to dwindle my finances even faster.  
 
The sad truth is that finances can be a great stressor, and with enough anxiety and hopelessness, money matters can exacerbate depression. I’m not the lady with the answers on this topic. I’ve probably whined about it before, so I won’t go into it to any great length here about my financial situation. Let’s just say I wouldn’t turn down a winning lottery ticket right about now. 
 
Somehow I got onto an email list to receive a USA.gov daily digest bulletin, and it actually has pointed me toward some interesting and useful information. One bulletin gave a link to their “Help for Difficult Times” page which has many resources for addressing employment, family support, housing, health care, health insurance, and debt and credit issues. I haven’t poked around these links  yet, but I definitely plan to. 

I think the important thing about dealing with financial concerns is to not let them bring you down to the point where you become immobilized. Financial literacy is a good thing, but if you are too overwhelmed or in too deep for that to be your solution, there are a lot of places you can turn to for help with strategizing on how to handle your situation. I have an appointment with someone for tomorrow to look into what options I may have for digging out of my financial quagmire. I am hopeful that the meeting will be productive. 
 
The good news is that blogging doesn’t cost me anything, and I’m finding it to be therapeutic, so whatever happens with my financial situation, as long as I can walk into a library that has an internet connection, I’ve still got this. And today I’m taking advantage of my other secret weapon for feeling better: blueberries. So I’m tanked up with antioxidants, and stimulated by the mental challenge of writing coherently. Maybe someday I’ll be able to invest in stocks or bonds or commodities, but for now I am investing in my physical and mental wellbeing.

And that’s more valuable than gold.
Maggie