I have been dissatisfied with some things. I kept having the feeling I could have done better, or been more sensitive to the world in which I live, and the people in it. I keep feeling like I forgot something or left something uncompleted. I have found myself being critical and condescending of others. Mildly irritated, like having a toothache. (Hmmm, I do have a toothache!)
about the holidays and depression, and I agree that this time of year can be very hard on some people. We even have meetings 24 hours a day at the club to provide a place of safety and comfort for those who need support.
puts a lot of pressure on some people.
This is from the same widget. I woke up this morning with the idea that I may be experiencing depression.
How can that be?I am happy, relatively healthy, and I have practically everything I need.
Why would I feel uncomfortable?
Maybe the answer will be revealed if I write about it.
What is it?
For me, when it used to be obvious, it was like a gray veil of fear and emptiness, inside of which I lived. When it had a hold on me, the world was a colorless place, dull and uninspiring. Knowing, that in a day or two, it would pass, did nothing to alleviate it.
I asked some of the people around me. Many of them were taking pills of some kind for depression. I wasn't particularly encouraged by their results. They seemed to have made the treatment of their mental state into a second career or lifestyle.
Drinking and drugs could provide a temporary diversion, but in the end only compounded my problem with depression.
The times of emptiness and disillusionment reinforced my pessimistic view of the world.
I think what saved me from complete madness were the two greatest things on earth; Music and Love.
I put them in that order because I found them in that order. From the very beginning, music put me in touch with God, (as I have come to know and understand God). Some musicians know what I am talking about. There are times when singing and playing, I touch God.
A woman I know, who experiences the same thing, described it to me as being covered in warm honey and filled with the bright light of divine existence. It doesn't always happen, but it echos through all performances until the next time it happens.
For me it's like I am plugged into everything that is, was, and will be anywhere in every way, all at once. The energy that comes through me feels, looks, and sounds like all the souls, in all the universes, alive in every note. I am humbled and enriched every time I am given that hand up to Gods place while I am playing and singing here on earth. Talk about awesome!
It doesn't happen all the time, but the feeling lingers until another glorious moment of contact.
The other thing that saved me from complete insanity is Love.
I never felt love for another human being until my second wife. Emotion and affection were discouraged in the Seymour household. I managed to exist without feeling, other than my own mental and physical pain, until I was 25.
With Kathy, nature stepped in and flipped my switch for biological love. Wow! The sun would shine, birds would sing, flowers would bloom and people could see and feel the love radiating from the two of us. Love songs poured out of me. I was filled with endorphins and happiness. "So this is what all the fuss is about", I said to myself. "This is it!" No more blues songs for me.
The scientific study on, "biological love", would not be published for another 20 years, so I was not prepared for the inevitable day when the bloom was off the rose. It seems that when we meet with an ideal mate in natures view, we fall head over heels in joyous, blissful lust for 4 years. If after four years this pairing has not produced offspring, nature turns off the joy and encourages us to move on to other unions. I wish I had known. I thought Kathy just wanted to tear out my heart and run over it with our car. I wrote a lot of blues songs.
For the next few years I was a little restrained when love would come my way, but Vicky was irresistible and love was sparking off of us like bolts of lightning. Living inside that electric field was reason enough to abandon my reticence, wind chimes chimed and the world entertained us with displays of beauty and wonder. I was writing love songs again. "This is it!" This is why I was put on this earth, nothing can stop this wonderful coupling. (The scientific study had not yet been completed.)
You would think by now I would be prepared for divorce. I wrote some more blues songs.
What I learned in this 20 year course on love, was how to love and be loved. How to laugh and cry. How to be moved by another human being and to feel their joy and pain. How to give and receive comfort. How to open my heart. It was now, July 1989. (to be continued)
After I wrote away my depression. 9:30 PM 12/27/08I guess just the thought of Music and Love is enough to fill my heart with happiness.
Sunrise Friday. 12/26/08-Beatles
