Dear Readers,
A few weeks ago, I was sitting next to my Uncle Wally near the fire pit at the hollowed grounds of Banbury Hot Springs. We were discussing my blog, the very one you're currently visiting, and I mentioned that I was working on not being so depressing. In response, he told me what my Grandma Hazel used to say to him when he was depressed: "Usually people are depressed because they're spending too much time thinking about themselves."
This conversation has echoed through my mind several times. My Grandma was and continues to be a very important person to my life and development. She died when I was Lucas's age, a very young 8 years old. Even then I put her on a pedestal, and when I think of her I picture someone filled with nothing but warmth, light, and love. I would love to grow up to be just like her. I suppose that it goes without saying when I hear words of advice that she's given, I listen to them reverently and closely and lock them away safely in my heart. What Wally shared with me has held an extra sort of gravity, and I think it's because it was a message that I particularly needed at this time in my life.
I, just like everybody else, have a lot of reasons to feel sorry for myself. My life has had more than it's share of grief, pain, illness, and misery. I have struggled with clinical depression for the entirety of my adult life, sprinkled with post-partum depression as well as anxiety issues. I have an auto-immune disease that reminds me daily that it's alive and well and doing it's best to make things difficult. Funny, I'm getting upset with myself for listing my complaints like this. I don't wear self-loathing well. For that reason, it was and is hard for me to recognize that I am being selfish when I allow one or the other of the items on my list of despair to bring me down. Once again, I can look to my Grandma Hazel's example for guidance; she spent a great deal of her life battling diabetes. I'm sure her list of struggles in life far exceed my own. However, I don't remember ever hearing her complain. I don't recall a time that she had negative words to say about anybody else. But I do have vivid memories of her patience, her kindness, and her pie, which she shared with whomever walked through her door.
This next week I will have my 33rd birthday. As a gift to myself, I am releasing myself from self-pity, and will replace it with the freedom to perform good works for others. I will allow my mind to rest from it's thoughts of self-doubt and critisism, to leave the job of deprication to others, to find and recognize my strengths and beauty. I will think kind thoughts, say kind words, and practice kind deeds. After all, I am doing no one else (let alone myself) a service of wallowing in guilt, grief, and depression. There's already plenty of that in the world without me adding to it. Most importantly, I will make more pie, and everyone that walks through my door will be offered a piece. I'm not sure that there's a better way to serve love and happiness than by the slice, after all.
Sincerely,
h.
