It's difficult for me to write a detailed personal blog post these days. Why is that?
I've been really freaking depressed for years.
I could sincerely just stop writing there and say I spoke the truth. But note how I ended that sentence with the words "for years." And we are now at the start of a new year. So perhaps this post will be more about what happens in years. The simple answer to this would be "life." Life is what happens every year. But some years are built different than others.
2023 Recap
So what do you want to hear about my 2023? I don't really know what information about my life people would care to hear. Which makes it hard to keep up a conversation. Like, every conversation ends when the other person asks me about my life. I suddenly realize I have nothing to say. Nothing particularly interesting, nothing I'm proud to admit, no hopeful news in my future. 2023 was my 7th consecutive year feeling this way; all 7 years since graduating college. Today, I talk about whatever the heck I want.
I have a hard time thinking about 2023 without the very first thing coming to mind being my going off psychiatric medication. I've been off meds since the last week of June. I've only told this to like 5 people. But it's always the first thing on my mind. Not going to my first music festival, not moving to Smithfield, not the big family vacations to the Florida coast or the Grand Tetons, not all 3 of my remaining grandparents dying within 9 months of each other, not doing a 10-mile run for my first time in years, not seeing my favorite band Wilco play live, not the couple of small music gigs I played, not buying a new used car with monthly payments for my first time ever, not all the hiking trails I checked out, not my makeshift trip to Idaho with a friend from Taiwan. The end of meds was the end of an era for me.
"It's the end of an era, it's true."
While I had randomly assorted brief bouts with medication throughout my adulthood, this run was huge for me. April 2018 - June 2023. I still have very fond memories from October 2018 - October 2019. I was feeling physiologically more like myself than I had in a decade, and I owe it all to my meds at that time. But that magic eventually ran out with my own life changes, and I've since felt particularly hopeless for these last 4 years.
My last few months newly off meds technically have not changed my life or behaviors at all. I'm still very much depressed on a daily basis. But my emotions no longer feel like a "life or death" circumstance. I feel them, they eventually pass, and they eventually come back. And the flow of emotions isn't as confusing to me; whereas meds often influenced good or bad emotions to arise out of nowhere. This is all interesting to me, although perhaps not something to talk about with someone you just met.
I Go Back
While I've long been guilty of overanalyzing my past, I'm kinda going through a bittersweet phase of introspection right now. I'm starting to emotionally recollect the times of my life I had once tried to erase.
Country singer Kenny Chesney released this rather classic song when I was a teenager. A song I never revisit, but often consider its chorus: "Every time I hear that song, I go back!" There are lots of songs that can take me back to specific beautiful memories. And of course, songs I tend to avoid, because I don't wanna go back (if you know what I mean).
Songs aside, I can look back at past behaviors and find myself cringing all the way. Some very distant memories, some very recent memories. How recent? Well, I've realized that I even dismiss my current behaviors in life. I assume I'll eventually "learn" to shrug them aside and change for good. That I'll return to my real self and my current life will one day just be another regrettable memory.
That's not how it works.
However, returning to my distant negative memories has helped me realize how connected all sides of me have always been, and always will be. Perhaps a lot of the dread I feel at the workplace is reminiscent of experiences I had as an LDS missionary; or real talk, even stuff dating back to struggles in elementary school. While I admit there are eras in my life--all garnered from my distant past--where I can say I found my truest self, those days are all connected to even my ugliest years.
I've wondered for awhile if I've thought too much about my past in order to move forward. Yet I'm pretty sure it's natural to be drawn to good memories. My much bigger issue is not accepting the whole of my past. And therefor, eventually becoming unable to accept my present.
2024
Earlier in this blog, I wrote that "life" is what happens every year. "Life" as a word I've come to use more poetically than literally. Especially with the modern uptick of people employed as life coaches, I don't think I'm the only one with a loose definition of "life." Literally, I've been living for 33 years. Technically, I've spent a lot of time existing as deadweight.
Perhaps the truest form of living life means you're living in the moment. I have not been doing this. I would see this as some kind of "hard to swallow" life lesson and I just need to buck up live my life right. But in my defense, living in the moment has been extremely hard for me for my entire adulthood. And any of the people reading this who think I can just flip that switch from 0 to 100, it's like, cool. Have fun believing that.
Like I mentioned in my last section, I'm kinda going through a bittersweet process of self-acceptance. I'm trying not to hate my most personally hate-able qualities. And I'm realizing those add up to make a really long list. This process probably doesn't have an end. But I really freaking hope that practicing self-acceptance leads to living in more moments. Cuz this stuff is hard.
I'm often scared to live in the moment because that means I'd give off more expressive behavior. I associate that with my clinical anxiety. Behavioral things I've increasingly tried to hide out of shame, leading to cumulating years of clinical depression. It's bittersweet (again, I know)... But this thing I'm scared of is probably my biggest goal for 2024.
That's it. That's the blog post.
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