Life gets in the way of things all too often. However, in this case, it is more like un-life that got in the way of my posting here. Depression makes everything unbearable, but for me, it makes writing, and writing anything of substance, absolutely agonizing. It’s responsible for my not winning this year’s NaNoWriMo, for missing posting in both of my blogs for far too long, and for making a mess of most of the fiction I had to write for a class.

But I did write, and I suppose that’s the important thing. A writer who is not writing, a storyteller who is not telling a story, is absolutely miserable, and empty. The more I write, however painful it is to begin or to go back and redo, the more sane I am. The more I write, the more solid I am. I am no longer a zombie or a drifting, hungry ghost; I am creating something of substance. I am creating my own body, and my own life.

Depression also sucks away my attention to read anything for very long, or to sit still. Depression makes me restless and scared, like an animal trapped in a cage who fitfully paces for weeks and then collapses from sheer exhaustion. But the more I read, the more stories I hear, the less hungry I am. The more still I become. Words ground me, fill me. Even if I remain a ghost, I am a ghost carrying something. I have something to hang on to.

I am slowly getting back into my enjoyment of reading and long, quiet hours of stillness.

I hope to be more devoted in both my spiritual practice (which includes updating this blog) and my daily life. I hope they will one day become one and the same, and no longer divided. Slowly, day by day, I hope to become myself again.