dianaschnuth

My winter depression is coming early this year, perhaps due to being holed in for some especially frigid days recently. I get easily frustrated with myself, and doubt my self-worth, and find fault. What makes it worse is that I don’t care. I mean, I obviously do care, but I can’t get motivated enough or take enough interest to do anything about any of it. It’s illogical and irrational and kind of stupid, but there it is.

Usually, this doesn’t hit until February, and for the past several years I’ve been able to stave it off with daily half-hour walks and vacation planning and being happily married. This year, though, all the planets are aligning, it seems, to help me be excessively blah. Not feeling particularly useful in my job, despite a positive annual review in November. Not feeling particularly successful in my weight loss, despite now being able to wear a large (as opposed to an extra-large) in some clothing styles. Not feeling properly wifely, as I’m never good at housekeeping and my libido’s shot to hell lately (TMI, sorry).

Can I fake it? Oh, sure, no problem. I’m no drama queen; I’d try to play it off, anyway.

But I don’t like feeling like this, and I’m not sure how to turn it around. Besides just waiting for spring, that is. It’s irrational and illogical and I can’t talk myself into being un-blah. I can’t formulate proper arguments to convince myself not to feel this way.

It’s irritating. Which only makes things worse.

Maybe I just need more sleep. Still.

Argh.

I take pride in the curious and somewhat unique way I observe Hallowe’en. For the past several years, I’ve taken some time on All Hallows’ Eve to remember or acknowledge my relatives and ancestors who are dead. Sometimes I focus on one person, like Granny, but usually I reflect on genealogy and departed family in general.

Tonight, my house is lit by four handmade cranberry soy candles. (And my computer monitor.) Granted, I’ve turned on lights here and there, but I’ve turned them back off when I left the room; usually, I leave the living room light on, even when I’m downstairs at my computer. The candlelight does create kind of a somber and subdued mood for my evening, but it also makes me realize how much we take electricity for granted.

Think about it: the U.S. didn’t have a widespread rural power grid until the 1930s (according to Wikipedia), so most of the farmers in my lineage would probably have been in bed asleep by this time of night. My grandparents and great-grandparents on all sides were fairly poor folk, living in shacks and lean-tos, and they didn’t have the creature comforts that many of their city-dwelling contemporaries did. What we take for granted didn’t become standard until our parents’ era.

Not so long from now, the next generation will be thinking the same thing about the internet. (Actually, they already are — one of Aaron’s co-workers was asked by his son what Google looked like when he was a kid.)

There are so many ways I could go with this line of thought… but I think I’ll leave this unfinished. I have some other tasks I need to work on this Hallowe’en night.

Happy Hallowe’en, all. Be safe. Enjoy yourselves.

P.S. – If ever anyone wanted to invite me to a Hallowe’en party, I wouldn’t be upset to miss my annual Hallowe’en Devotional. I promise.

Yes, I know I should be in bed. This evening was a wash. I’m not sure what happened. I had detailed plans, a schedule, an agenda, and it all went to shit. I ended up playing 2½ games of Civilization Revolution on 360 instead of producing the Zen podcast and fixing my blog and exercising.

[…]

One interesting result of more people reading my blog, via Facebook or LJ whatever, is that I’m more careful about what I post. I mean, I’ve always tried to be careful when posting about other people, or about co-workers in particular — this is the internet, after all, and who knows where a post about a named individual could end up. The internet is a big place, and everybody knows somebody.

Anyway, that’s not the problem so much as is my new-found inhibition with blogging about myself. Used to be, I used my blog as a surrogate for my written journal of ages past. Detailing stuff that happened over the course of the day, talking through my mental bullshit, complaining about other people (albeit anonymously), complaining about myself.

But now… as the years have passed, I find that I’d rather not put all of this out on display. This is no longer just a communication between myself and a dozen friends from college. Now, my co-workers could potentially read it. The sangha (my Zen buddies) could read it. A future employer could read it.

Not that there’s anything I need to say that’s earth-shattering. It’s just that I’m less inclined to indulge in a giant pity party over nothing when I know that the normals are following along.

I just wish I could shake this funk. I don’t want to feel all blah like this, but I can’t seem to find the motivation to even locate my bootstraps, much less pull myself up by them.

Not fishing. Just thinking.

I’ve been trying to make a concerted effort to post a “real” blog entry daily, especially since I have my Twitter feeding into my blog. I feel kind of contentless if I let my blog fill up with Twitter Updates, with no actual entries to break them up.

When I really don’t feel like writing, or don’t have a topic that inspires me, my M.O. lately has been to search my Flickr for an interesting photo to post. Tonight, I thought it would be fun to find some good times in high school and post those. Funny thing is, I haven’t scanned in many pics from those years. So, I got to looking in the years before and after high school, instead, and found that I had mixed feelings about seeing a lot of those images. That surprised me.

I look at photos of me (rare though they are) in late elementary school and into junior high, and I just feel such pity for that frumpy and awkward girl. Then I look at photos of me in late college and just after college, and I can’t believe that I didn’t take my health into my own hands. I looked awful, and I hadn’t realized at the time that I felt awful.

I guess I’ve always felt awkward, in one way or another, and seeing these pictures and being somewhat divorced over time from the situations they portray… I don’t know. I guess it reminds me that I just never really felt like I fit, socially. That’s why I was (and am) such close friends with select people; they’re the people who neutralize the awkward. They make me forget to feel uncomfortable about all the superficial things that I shouldn’t feel uncomfortable about, anyway.

Maybe one of these days, I’ll scan and post all the painfully awkward photos of myself I can find. It’ll be cathartic or something. 😀

Is everyone like this? I’ll go all-out on something — say, a diet — for a few weeks, then I’ll just coast for a week or so. Same thing happens with web projects, or major cleaning endeavors at home, or an exercise plan, or anything sustained over a decently long period of time. (Unfortunately, my collegiate academics were like that, too, but I didn’t “coast” as much as “quit going to class.”)

I’m in the middle of the slack phase of my diet right now. I’m actually eating my Flex Points (the built-in cheaty part of the diet) instead of ignoring them like I usually do, or saving them for emergencies (e.g. “I had no idea that Indian dish was made with clarified butter”). I’m also in the midst of an exercise slack phase; I haven’t done my prescribed nightly exercise for a couple of weeks. I’m maintaining my weight fairly well, and I’m wondering if these phases of slackerdom aren’t related to my body needing to chill the fuck out with the weight loss, and just catch up with itself.

Thing is, I’m taking a mental vacation in other ways, too. I’m having a bitch of a time focusing on my job. I’m taking days off of working on my freelance site, even though one or two evenings of nose-to-the-grindstone work would wrap things up once and for all. My desk (at home) is getting messy again. I wonder what’s up with me?