As in, “What to do with myself”?

Finals are done. So freshly done that I have little idea what grades look like. There are two candidates for failure, to be fully honest. But I feel like I finished well enough in both classes so I am optimistic about closing out the semester will all passing grades. Yay.

Today finds me cleaning the house. Some out of residual school anxiety, some out of the sudden quiet, and maybe a pinch out of good old fashioned worry. House chores have been neglected since mid October. So gross. If I brought a girl home and she saw my bathroom, so traumatic would be the sight that she’d die on the spot. And I’d get arrested and rightfully charged with murder.

Cleaning that pit is on the agenda. I promise. Today or tomorrow. I have a very full to do list and I’m just choosing chores depending on my mood. Like now, for instance, I went from cleaning the kitchen to old art supplies to minimizing junk drawers to needing a break. Each task unfinished but I need a moment. Say, since I’m sitting, why not reawaken the blog?

How long has it been since I wrote here last? October 24. Yeah, sounds about right. You see somewhere between late October and shortly after New Year’s on any given year, I slump into a bout of seasonal depression. I slack on all the things and usually enter an emotional dormancy that insists my physicality match. This year, despite the slacking on exercising, chores, and all the responsible things, I managed to keep it together enough to make it through school. I’m still unsure how. Between you and me,I have a real deep feeling that if I don’t get this school thing done, I’m done.

So here I am between semesters with a weird depression I need to distract myself from. The plan is to busy myself with chores or to-do lists or something productive. I’ve squandered enough of my life on video-games and making my fantasy worlds intricate and achieved, why not try the same but in real life. Even if my mood is fucked, at least I’ll have some material possessions to show for it. Maybe just maybe, in my good times, I can build up enough of a savings to power me through when I experience these faltering times.

I look to doing art again with a hungry eye. And a heavy heart. I do not have the time, focus, or discipline to pick it up and stick to it. It’s a demanding hobby and one that has broken me enough times to know better. Still . . . Maybe after I figure out cleaning, school schemes, and a few toilsome house projects, I might just be good to myself and give in.

At least, it feels that way. I’ve noted in the past that usually on about Halloween and through to mid January, some depressive symptoms come on. Halloween came this year and I guess I was distracted by other stresses, I failed to notice some of the underlying nuances of an oncoming depressive episode. Today, the mid of November, I can certainly see those nuances grow into more ominous signs. Getting overly sad, neglecting duties, begging the question, “What does it matter?” yeah, I’m going into a slump. Time to batten down the hatches.

My normal go-to’s for for stability are among the duties I’ve been actively neglecting.Among the numerous aspects of my life suffering: homework and school skills. The former needing more attention than the latter in this instance, for without a solid foundation, the entire structure will fall. So fundamentals, exercise, eat clean, meditate, sleep discipline, I have to, have to practice those and with urgency. Otherwise the answer to the aforementioned question will be a hopeless pathetic utterance of “Nothing . . . nothing matters.” And it is when I utter those inner words that I give up.

I have many labors not worth throwing away right now. I’d like to stay in the game and if I can learn to power through, that seems like a skill that’ll help me in my latter days. Building up an abundance of good will and resources to boost my ability to get through the emotional winters is good practice. I don’t want to be so incapacitated by sadness I can’t bring myself to chop wood to keep the fires burning. Because who the fuck am I to deserve heat.

I hear others chant to themselves mantras and credos. And when I do, I can’t help but feel a reverence and sorrow for them. Because, despite what one might see on the outside, you can feel them trying to pull together from within. And, despite the pain, uncertainty or inner dilemmas they’re going through, these chants are another way for them to reinforce their desired state of being.

I “get” these people. They makes sense to me because I am the same way. My rickety rigging of an emotional raft floats a speck on life’s ocean. There have been too many times where things hang my a tattered rope ready to fall apart in the gentlest of gales. Fuck, I’m afloat, but who knows how. And If I fall off my game, I lose sight of the why.

Yep, more god damned tests. Forgive me, but I’m nervous and need to spend my time studying. I’ll whinge about all of it Friday. You know, providing I have the time.