THIS IS A BLOG ABOUT DEPRESSION

For a couple years I've fought it off. Pushed to define how to put a bow on it. To make it more than what it ultimately is. Trying to define the audience and the  niche. 

This is a blog about depression. 

Of course that's too simple, but the reality is that depression is my life's filter.  None shall go forward without passing through.

One must also know that this is okay. That depression is also a part of my nostalgia. My snippets of mostly the eighties, of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, of music, cynical quips. All of it. It's all a part. 

It's what drives me to try and help others be better. 

It's what sends me away for a time, to over analyze, to consider. To withdraw and melt away for a bit. Sometimes to return with renewed lightness. Sometimes just to return. Taught. Pensive. Lips eternally pursed. 

It's walking into every situation with a joke. To lighten. To force the opposite.  To brighten things for the rest so as not to add weight to their day. 

It's what makes me think that how I think has to be unique, important, different. To then have everyone say "that's exactly what I think".

It's what has pushed me to the center of attention, to look at me, to acknowledge, to give whatever it is I'm doing, value and worth and importance. 

It's the sometimes gentle, many times roaring, all times present, hum of anxiety I wake with. Falling away as the days open up and out to me when I recognize and remind that this is just how it is. 

It's this drama I steep everything I do in. Thick like Louisiana humidity. I work to be aware, and when I am, to lessen it, but it's there. Always. 

It's every hug and every high five. 

It might exhaust you. At times, it does me.

It's the fuel that presses me to train hard an, and then sometimes, inexplicably lose steam. Maybe from the outside this looks inevitable. Internally it looks weak, a failure of will, fraudulent. I still believe I can go fast. Run my best. I also know that the pressing into the training keeps me on track. Saner. So I always keep going. 

It's all this and much more. It's everything really. Most importantly I have to remind that it's okay. That  even when it looks bad that it's okay. That it's been this way for forever and we now have a solid working relationship, my depression and I. It promises to show up on time. To arrive early and to stay late. I agree to recognize it but not to let it completely and wholly define me (even though I just spent 5 mins doing that).  It is the filter for sure, but it's also a part of what's made me a musician, a writer, a husband, a dad, a friend, a coach, a son, an entrepreneur and an athlete. 

To ignore that is to let it win. 

To recognize it as a part of the positive is to own it. 

And so, this exercise, this overt sharing is for me, but it's also for you. Sometimes being depressed wins, but sometimes, if you frame it  and accept it from different angles, we can recognize it as a gift, or at the least an important part of why we are, who we are. 

Then we can get that joke ready for our next entry.

Because making light is being light. 

#hugsandhi5s