Struggle

I have been having trouble with my depression… still… and am wondering what I can try to do differently. I don’t really know what’s making it happen, but it’s definitely happening, even though things, overall, are going alright. I ran yesterday, even though my one co-worker thought I was crazy to run in the cold. It wasn’t as cold as the day before, so it wasn’t so bad, but I still had trouble. I’m not sure if it’s the cold or if I’m backsliding, or perhaps mildly ill, but my legs hurt a good bit yesterday about halfway through my run, so I cut it short. When I got back, I looked for my ID in my pocket and couldn’t find it, and got pretty upset about needing to go back over the course of my run, since it takes half of my lunch break, I checked my car to make sure it wasn’t in my bag, and then set out to look for it, and noticed I was wearing it around my neck… which was a relief, but also made me feel kind of dumb. Anyhow, I then went inside and had my lunch and read my book. I kept up with work, so that was good, and listened to all of my podcasts, and then listened to the audiobook I am listening to on the way home, and got through three chapters, finishing the third one while cooking at home. I made my sausage pasta, and did the dishes, and then played some Skyrim while eating. The cats came and sat on me, because they seemed to be feeling really cuddly. I enjoyed playing my game, but didn’t get as much done as I had hoped. I did work on building this house, adopted a kid (since that’s a thing you can do), worked on advancing the vampire hunter faction, traveled to some remote places to do a few quests I had been sitting on, and became the Thane of one of the holds. I guess I did a bunch, but it didn’t seem like it at the time. Anyhow, when Megan texted that she was ready to go to bed, I put away the leftovers, and got into bed. We talked for a while, and she is coming home a day early, which is cool, since I have missed her (I think the cats have, too), and she will be getting home late, so I will still have time to play Skyrim, which is kind of the best of both worlds, even though Megan is kind of annoyed about getting home so late… and is thinking of trying to telework on Friday. Anyhow, after we had talked for a while, I went to sleep. I didn’t sleep very well, and woke up around 6, when I had set the alarm for 6:30, and since I couldn’t sleep, and already had things set up, I got up and decided I would play Skyrim and work just on building my house and selling stuff. That was good. I don’t have the house completely finished, but it’s in a liveable condition, and that’s cool. I also got closer to becoming a thane in another hold (which mostly involves gathering a vast sum of money to buy another house), which is cool. I think I’ll move my new family to the new house, and gather materials to fix it up further (and add additions) while working on that vampire hunter thing, since it works for my other goals (like advancing my restoration magic, since they have some pretty good spells, and hopefully stopping all the vampire attacks), and factors in to my homesteading, since I want to make one of those characters the steward for my house. That quest line also involves going to a place where quite a few quests have accumulated over time, so I should be able to clear out several of them in short order, which would be cool. I have also never seen it, so it will be something unexpected (though I assume it will involve killing lots of vampires). Hopefully, Megan will want to keep up the early schedule she was pushing last week, so I can keep playing now and again.

Work today has been okay. I’ve been keeping up, and despite being a tad sore, I am planning to at least have a go at running again today. Megan emailed me upset, because she has an earache, which is unpleasant on a normal day, but on one where she will be flying home later, it’s a bigger concern. Hopefully, it won’t make it hard to pop her ears. It’s also possible that we were both mildly sick before she left, and that our respective exposure has made us both mildly sick… possibly in different ways. That, or if one of us isn’t sick, it’s not unlikely that they will catch it from the other one. I guess it’s a possibility, and not a particularly pleasant one. Hopefully, it won’t do anything, but if it does, we’ll weather the storm, I’m sure.

I guess we were thinking of hanging out with Matt and Ryan this weekend, though apparently we had weeks mixed up, because Megan’s friends are planning on coming down next week. Other than that, I guess we’ll play it by ear. If we happen to be sick, we might just not do much of anything.

My depression, though, is challenging for me. I am a tad stressed, recently. Work is not particularly rewarding or challenging, and I am being kind of pushed into a supervisory role that I just don’t want. Megan has been talking about having children again, because we are nearing the end of the period of time where the doctor told us she should not get pregnant, and I think she wants it. I… am trying to give it a fair consideration. I have strong feelings both ways, and am having trouble resolving those feelings. I’m trying to delve into those feelings. The weird dream I had a few weeks ago about a friendly alien/elf communicating subtleties through gestures came to mind yesterday, and looking up what dreams of aliens are supposed to mean, what I could find indicated that a likely meaning was that there was some part of my subconscious trying to communicate with me (since it was a friendly alien). Part of me wonders if it is my considerations about having children, since it’s a friendly alien, but aliens are something that kind of freak me out… which rather matches how I feel about kids. Between that and the depression, I am tempted to try to do some shamanic journeying… though the book I read about depression also kind of indicated that trying to figure it out was not particularly helpful… though I don’t think it was considering shamanism as an option. Perhaps I can even find that being to have a conversation… or address my depression and perhaps receive a response. I kind of wonder that I don’t try this more often, honestly… since it has been fabulously successful in the past. I’m not sure that an answer from whatever I find would cause me to choose one answer over the other, but perhaps it would provide me with an insight that I hadn’t considered before. I think I’ll give that a try.