Friday Blues

It’s a glorious spring day here. Blue skies, a gentle warm breeze, sunshine and fluffy clouds languidly crossing the sky.

Last Friday was blue too – more midnight blue shade, verging on black, as I hid in my bed, feeling low and hopeless.

I guess that’s why they call them the blues… or something.

The difference between this Friday and last Friday, as far as my emotional and mental state goes, is mostly a mystery to me. All I know is that by last Friday I had completely slumped into a stretch of four days of tears and the heaviness of depression, triggered at least in part by being unemployed once again, and the anxieties that brings up (plus, depressive disorder!).

Last Friday I took an unprecedented two naps, one around midday and one later in the afternoon. It was the best way I could think of to avoid feeling my feelings. The least damaging option, for sure. There was wine in the fridge, but I didn’t want to choose that route. I didn’t entertain any thoughts about the amount of antidepressants in my house (truly, I didn’t).

I slept a lot across the weekend and into the start of this week. I guess it helped because it kept me from being in my feelings all the time. I also made an appointment to see my GP, because I was concerned at the deep dive my emotions had me on. Sobbing on the toilet will do that to a person.

I think I can partly account for what brought me out of that slump – this brain business isn’t very precise from a ‘users’ perspective.

I shared a bit of what I was feeling on social media, and I received some beautiful, mostly quite simple, encouragement from people that somehow have come to follow me, mostly on Instagram. Strangers by some definitions. Friends by our new definitions. People with Instagram handles I could instantly put a face to, and those I couldn’t so quickly. It didn’t matter. Each of them took a moment to tap a message, or just a heart, into their phones, and all those hearts and words they tapped, they each reached me.
Isn’t that something? They reached me and they reminded me I’m not alone.

There were plans to have lunch with my awesome friend Suzanne yesterday (Thursday) and I was concerned that I wouldn’t feel up to going to see her. Luckily by Wednesday I was feeling pretty even-keeled again. Also, we’d texted back and forth a bit earlier in the week. Suzanne is someone I’m (reluctantly) willing to tell the truth to, so I know she’s a safe person to be around, whatever state I’m in.

Driving up to visit her in the hills, between the trees and the ferns and the dappled light, then spending several hours with someone I can totally be myself with…. what a tonic. It was beautiful and gentle. I needed that.

Today is a mellow day at home. My brain and heart are quiet. I like it when they’re like this. Scratch that, I love it.

I went and looked at the clouds earlier, and mused about how much my feelings can change so much from one Friday to the next. I don’t expect never to feel that midnight blue-black feeling again. It’s almost a certainty. What’s also a certainty – days like today will come again. Turmoil and peace.

While I’ve been typing, my peripheral vision keeps catching the curtains billowing in the hallway… letting fresh air and sunshine into my home, a swirling pattern of dappled light playing out across the carpet. My brain might not have a window I can open, but there’s definitely a sweet breeze bringing the sunshine in.

I’ll take it.
I’ll keep taking my meds too.

Much love to you all,

Annette xxxx

PS Thank you to those of you who read my words and leave me comments here, and to those who see my Instagram stories and send me hearts and messages. Thank you to you too Sueby, for being exactly who you are, and for understanding my continuing, hopefully diminishing, reticence to be vulnerable.