MY BITTER NOVEMBER

Last week I felt crushed.
Really, I mean it- I don’t know what hit me. One day I was smiling, glowing, happy ,joking handling anything that came my way with the aplomb of an Amazon, my blog profile said “ contented, happy go lucky & placid” in description of me, then – suddenly I woke up at 3 am one night in a cold sweat of depression and panic, and it was officially the beginning of an all time low. My whole personality crumpled inwards as if its superstructure had collapsed. It was horrible.

Before you direct me to the nearest reputed psychiatrist, or send me links on the subject please let me assure you I have handled this sort of thing perfectly well previously and emerged visibly unscathed but somewhat older, so from afar this isn’t as serious as I make it sound; but when Im in it, this is genuine tangible depression as black as tar and as scary as Voldemort – and, what’s more , I’ve noticed this is what happens to me each year around November!

It’s when I realize another year is almost over and I can’t even remember what I set out to do this year in the first place, but there are more crows feet and less teeth, plus my toes are looking worse and there is more grey in my hair. Weight is becoming progressively more difficult to shed and my knees are beginning to act funny.

I honestly feel grouchy, self pitied, selfish, mean, low and totally anti social in November. I suddenly realize that I still don’t posses any of those critical success factors that society judges you by- a swanky residence, a posh set of wheels, a handy spouse (ok not necessarily in that shallow order) and a large impressive Doberman or two… the fact that I don’t has never actually bothered me from January to October so I cant for the life of me figure out why I feel like a total and abject failure in November….perhaps it’s the weather…if I believed in demonic possession Id say this was a classic example of standard low intensity interference and probably my friends in the medical profession would sign me up for a month of contraband Prozac. – but the good news, dear friends, is that one way or another each year I beat it, each year, by myself .

How?
Religion has always helped me. Any religion. You sit inside a temple or a church or heck you even sit in front of a shrine in your own home ,alone with candles and beads, there is beautiful magic in that.

Empathy helps me, involving me in the problems other people have , some of which make mine seem laughable, trying to help other humans and animals in this difficult obstacle course called life, making old people smile again, and doing something small for someone which they didn’t expect.

My friends help me; year after year I find that there is always someone, it doesn’t have to be the same set , but inevitably I have been blessed with friends who go out of their way to lend me a helping hand and pull me out of this strange darkness. To scold me out of it , to drag me away from it, to distract me and cajole me – my precious friends are a formidable team that no obscure condition can ever hope to beat. Thank you all, you know who you are!

And of course, family.
There is family I had from the time I was born and there is family I discovered recently, there is family who joined me a few years before. There is also family that I have adopted. What makes them family is how dependable they are, how close, and not necessarily the ties of blood. That first and last refuge for the weary, a place to rest ones soul.

Looking at this list of precious resource I have, I wonder how I could ever possibly feel dejection in the first place - but then considering the laws of Universal balance, perhaps just to make up for the optimism I feel eleven months of the year, I must experience one month of inexplicable somberness.
That would be November.