Thursday, July 06, 2017

That Wonderful Sound

I got a new computer with some of the money from this year's summer work.  I really needed one.  My old netbook had become so sluggish and grumpy that I just hated to use it for anything.  I think when I upgraded it to Windows 10, it just wasn't quite up to the job somehow.

This new one has no such issues.  It is nice to feel that the machine is a tool and not an obstacle again.  Even though I'm not a programmer or a power user, as a teacher, I need reliable access to be able to get everything ready for my job.  The old netbook just could not provide that anymore.

My favorite part of it is the most absurd, I suppose.  It's not the big screen or the backlit keyboard; it's the fact that it FOUND MY PRINTER without my having to perform an arcane ritual under the light of the full moon and that it PRINTED A DOCUMENT FROM WORD without my having to turn it into a PDF, route it through Thailand, and offer up incense and prayers.  I simply opened Word, clicked the little "quick print" icon, and that wonderful sound, that soft click and whir, issued from across the room.

Technology working like it is supposed to work.  Who ever thought of such a thing?

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

And Then There's This....

I went to see my neurologist yesterday, and we talked about the fact that my headaches are *not* actually getting better.  I had kept stubbornly insisting that they would.  After all, I am out of my former negative work environment now, and all the bad stuff there is out of my life now.  Why wouldn’t things be getting better?

He started asking me some questions, and I knew where he was headed with it - depression.  I immediately bridled at the idea, but then he told me that whatever has screwed up my brain to make me prone to migraines also means I am prone to depression. His phrase was that the two conditions frequently “walk hand-in-hand.” He is putting me on a very low dose of an antidepressant to help with the migraines since the same chemical mechanisms are involved.

I left his office, and I felt like an utter failure.  Everybody I know is on antidepressants, I think.  Hell, just the teachers are probably keeping the American pharmaceutical industry afloat.  Two other doctors have talked to me about going on them, especially after my surgery and when my stress levels were so high my blood pressure was spiking to dangerous levels.  I have resisted.  I kept feeling like, you know, my life isn’t so bad.  I have a family that loves me.  I have a home and pets and friends.  How can I be depressed?  What right do I have to it?  (Which makes no flipping sense, I know, but that's how I felt.)  I need to just pull myself together is all. If I just refocused myself or change this external factor or add this new routine, I was going to be fine.  

But it really hasn’t been, and I am increasingly thinking that maybe I'm not.

I was sick about it all day, mad and looking for some way out of what I saw as a personal failing.  But I kept thinking about it.  I thought about the questions he had asked me.  Was I withdrawing from people?  Had I lost interest in things I used to enjoy?  Was I tired all the time?  Was my sleep irregular?

Yes.  Yes, yes, and yes.

I looked up a list of symptoms online.  I was really doing it more to prove to myself that this is *not* depression more than any other thing at this point, that while I might have a few of the signs that there were certainly others much more serious that would show I was not dealing with this. This is just life.  This is just teaching life.  This is just life after 40.  Whatever.  Yeah.  That didn’t work at all.  Flipping internet.

Am I frequently irritable?  Yes.  Apathetic?  You bet. Mood swings?  Like a damn carnival ride. Panic attacks or anxiety?  Checkity-check-check-check.  On and on.

And it’s been this way for about three years now that I can objectively measure.  Maybe longer.  

That’s when it hit me like a hammer.  Is this what’s wrong?  Has this been why I never seem to get anything done now, why every weekend I am just on the couch reading or sleeping?  I haven’t applied for an out-of-country summer program in a couple of years.  Thinking about the effort involved makes me too tired to fool with it.  I make plans to clean the house, to make sourdough, to start a stained glass project, to do anything but sit with a book, and by the end of the day, I find that I simply haven’t, but despite all that nothing, I’m just as tired.

I don’t write anymore.  I don’t keep up with my friends.  I don’t craft anymore.  I don’t workout anymore.  I don’t practice the piano anymore.  Everywhere except at school, which oddly seems to be less affected by this, I just sort of….am.

Yesterday, I was angry about it.  Just one more stupid thing wrong with my stupid body, just one more way nature has found to mess me over. When I woke up this morning, though, I felt a little differently.  If this *is* the problem (and remember he is giving me a low, low dose of the medicine to help with the migraines), is there then hope?  Can I get back to a place where I don’t have to feel so bad all the time?  Can I get back to a place where I do things again?

I guess we will just have to see.

Saturday, March 18, 2017

Spring Comes Again

I haven't written in five months, almost to the day.  It feels in a very real way like I've been dead or sleeping since October.

Something huge happened with a member of my family's health, and without even meaning to, I somehow shut down all the non-essential functions.  I was like a tree when the winter came.  I dropped my leaves and pulled inside myself to ride out the season.

The last big part of what was going on ended this week, and even though there are still many things we know are coming and other things that may develop, it's as if I felt the world shift again, all those things that had gone out-of-balance slipping back into place.

This week, I cleaned my house.  I took care of online tasks I had let go for ages.  I replaced several items that had gotten so damaged that they no longer functioned.  In short, spring has come, and the world is full of green again.

Everything got put on hold except the absolutely necessary. Life had been a cycle of work-home-sleep-repeat.  I've neglected everybody terribly.  I have had one conversation I am more or less ashamed of and will have to set right.

Wilco said it best:

How can I warn you when my tongue turns to dust like we've discussed?
It doesn't mean that I don't care
It means I'm partially there
You're gonna need to be patient with me

How I hope people, especially those I love, will continue to be.