September 05, 2001 - 22:17 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

Whither

Maybe tonight should be a night off from my diary. The dark cloak of depression is trying to smother the me that is me. I know that a nights sleep, plus the medication I use will, if anything lighten things a bit by tomorrow morning. But that is tomorrow morning, 'til then my pre-SAD-fad will be with me.

Could it be that my mind is skittering away from the knowledge that winter is sure to come ? Usually I can see fun and romance in all seasons of the year, but periodically SAD takes the helm and the anticipation of it begins to drag like towing an anchor through bottom mud.

How do I describe it to myself ? Oh, there many ways I guess. Like tasting a bit of a desired glass of milk and finding out that it is a tad off. Warmth is too hot and cold is too frigid, in between is uncomfortably boring. An analogy, now that the cataract operations are long over, could be the returning of the greasy glass of brown making my view of the world and its denizens besmirched. I don't even like myself when I get this way.

But, I know that it will be easier on me than it was with people of the past when all they could do is try to retain enough sanity to appreciate the curtain rising again on cheerful activity and thought. I think it was Winston Churchill who described his fits of deep depression as, "The Black Dog." To me, maybe an apt description for the depression that seizes me in the fall or pre-fall season is to describe it as a grim, dark, hateful monkey dropping around my shoulders and hanging on by claw and fang.

So now I have faced it and described it, so it is cured 'til next time ? maybe forever ? Don't I wish it were so.

Funny all the love and concern help not, kindness extended hits with a dull thwock. All the time berating myself and cursing myself for being a wimpy fool, and an ingrate. In a way it reminds me of a stage of my childhood where upon being teased, tormented or sat on by a larger person the reaction is, "I'm mad, I'm going to stay mad forever -- no matter what."

Now, from this mixed bag, tomorrow it is tither or Whither . . . . . . .

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