The Pits...

I've found myself being eaten alive by depression for almost three months now, and I'm to the point where I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever find a way to pull my life back together. So much has happened since my last post - some of it quite awful; other stuff equally wonderful... but the elation I experience from the good stuff only lasts a day, if that long, and then I slide back into the pit again.

The new year started out so promising... in mid-January I reached my 6-month sobriety mark and was so proud of myself. I'd gotten to the point where I wasn't doing any stinking-thinking any more, and the desire for Jack appeared to be a thing of the past. I was enthusiastically attending AA meetings, plowing my way through the 12 step program, doing a lot of writing, having weekly meetings with my sponsor, digging deeper into my head than I've been in decades, and getting some really good work done.

I was starting to practice the piano again, and making some serious progress on a couple of Rachmaninoff preludes; I dragged out my flute and managed to work myself up to a good twenty minute session a couple of times a week without collapsing a lung; I replaced the stacks of crap on the organ bench with my butt and dug into some Bach and, overall, was having a grand time.

I have a trunk show to present in November, followed by a class in January, and I was starting to make up a bunch of class samples, and was getting a good running start on my new direction of "Small-and-Embellished-to-Hell" quilts for this year's Open Studios.

Best of all I was working out at the gym three days a week and was building some awesome muscles and strength, as well as losing a few pounds. I was totally loving it and was experiencing a new kind of high like nothing I'd ever experienced before.

Then... Wham! Bam! Thank-you Ma'am...! Something fell out of the sky and practically shut me down, and I haven't been able to rev myself back up for shit. A good friend died in March, and totally knocked the wind out of my sails. Then a few crummy things happened to a couple of other friends, then the crap in Boston, followed by the horror in Texas... the kind of stuff that normally upsets me but doesn't lay me low... this time around everything has completely flattened me. In the meantime, my over-abundance of enthusiasm at the gym resulted in what's turning out to be a major case of "Trigger Thumb" in both of my hands.  The pain is from hell, and I haven't been able to work out in over a month, and playing any of my instruments has become impossible because it just hurts too fucking much. My creativity in the studio has tanked, and I haven't sewn a stitch for weeks.

Most damning of all is the worsening of my tinnitus problem. I'm now continuously barraged with high-pitched ringing in both ears, sometimes accompanied by a lower pitch (or two) and sometimes by a whooshing sound. I can no longer just sit and enjoy silence, as I once loved to do. But I sit anyway, and have begun to meditate every day, at which time I just sit with the noise and let it be what it is. Most of the tinnitus is caused by the blood pressure meds I take, and, recently, has been exacerbated by the addition of the Nsaids I'm now taking for the pain in my hands. I want to free myself from the Nsaids because I know they're dangerous, but, even in the short time I've been taking them, my body has become dependent on them, and when I stop, other pains from aging joints and old injuries make themselves known and it's quite dreadful. I must wean myself from them, though... that's all there is to it.

The only thing I've hung in with is tending to my orchids and violets, because I know they'll die if I don't stay on top of their care. My roses and other outside plants have completely gone to hell, and, if not for our recent rains, they would have croaked along with everything else. But now that the rain has stopped, I can't even drag my ass outside and turn on the frigging hose.

And my cats. I thank The Universe for my cats. They've been my only dose of salvation.

And... I haven't had a drink, though my caffeine and ice cream intake has gone through the roof.

So, that's where I am.

I. feel. so. lost. and. I just. can't. find. my. way. back.

On Monday, I'm leaving for a few days at a retreat center with a bunch of my quilting buddies. Today, as I was getting stuff ready to take, I felt the tiniest surge of excitement, and I'm hoping against hope this week may be the beginning of my return to My Life.

Please send some good mojo my way!