The D word.

It's 7:00am.

My all-annoying alarm starts beeping at me (or singing at me...all depending on if I'm annoyed with hearing the same song OVER and OVER again, day in and day out).

I turn it off.

I go back to sleep.

I text my boss and tell him -- I don't think I can come in today.

I have done this for the last two weeks.

About three weeks ago marked the anniversary of my mother's death (which you blog followers remember because I, of course, wrote about it). I also lost two friends that same week. One was to death. One was to a relationship that dramatically altered a friendship. Both, nonetheless, losses. All was a blow to my emotional stability.
We all deal with loss. I'm not saying that mine is any different than yours. What I do know -- I deal with it a little differently. I might be a great speaker. A decent writer. A good cook. A talented singer. I'm a lousy loser.

It seems, without fail, every year around this time, I have to deal with loss in some form. It also seems, without fail, that this time of year I struggle enormously to get out of bed. To pick myself up. To keep myself going.

I am immensely blessed with gobs of friends, great friends, best friends and family who support me in ways that they might not even know. But I still am alone in the morning when I wake up, and alone at night when I go to sleep. There's no one knocking on my door or reminding me that I have a reason to get up. There's no one making me do the tasks on my to-do list that I have on my desktop staring me in the face every day (most of it involves paying some sort of bill...) There's no one to greet with a smile. I have to motivate myself, every day, to get up. To breathe in and breathe out.

All the signs have been there in the past few weeks. My room became less and less neat. I started staying up later and later. I stopped exercising. I stopped eating healthy. I stopped caring. I stopped working. I just.....stopped.

I'm trying to go again, but it's hard. I'm sure many of you are thinking, "Geez, Courtney. Suck it up and move on!" I tell myself that EVERY SINGLE DAY. I think to myself...why can't you just get up and do all of the things you want to do? Why can't you go to work like every one else? I beat myself up over it constantly.

Depression (there, I said it) effects millions of Americans. For various reasons, I'm sure. For me, I'm pretty sure mine still results from years of loss. I believe my depression has been a vicious cycle. My depression has been the very cause of some of my losses...and yet losing those things causes my depression to cycle again. And this , my friends, is why I write.

If someone can take my mistakes, my heartache, my JOYS, my life...and learn something from it, gain a new perspective, then to me, it's worth it. That's probably one of my greatest reasons for wanting to be a mother. I want to be able to teach someone from what I've had to experience. This is also why I plaster my life on a webpage for the world to see, and inevitably judge.

I managed to finally get out of bed today around 11am. I decided to take a walk. I have a normal path in my neighborhood that I walk and it involves walking through the woods.



I walked with a purpose today. One foot in front of the other -- keeping a steady brisk pace. Listening to the leaves shuffle and crunch under my feet. Overstepping branches and twigs. Admiring the fall colors that I love so much. Breathing in........and breathing out. Feeling my muscles warm up and become looser and my heart rate increase. After a while, small beads of sweat accumulate on my brow. I rolled up my sleeves and kept going. My ankle started to hurt...but I kept walking...at the same pace as before. I wasn't going to quit. No cell phone. Today it was about me and the journey. My path takes me about 35 minutes to complete full circle. In my last stretch, despite the pain, I started to run. I found a steady breath and kept running until I reached the front porch.

Walking is one of my therapies. Writing is as well. (Along with talking, singing, dancing, cooking....) I don't take an iPod with me when I walk (that could be attributed to the fact I don't actually OWN an iPod....but anyone is welcome to give me one for Christmas). I don't listen to music. I get lost in the scenery. I get lost in my own thoughts. I get lost in the rhythm of my feet hitting the pavement. I hear music in the world around me. Cars driving by. Dogs barking. A shirtless child riding his little skateboard across the pavement. Click. Click. Click...each time he hits a crack.

I had this thought. "You have to walk before you can run." I don't know exactly how that ties into my life, but somehow it does. I have baGILLION things I want to do with my life. I have desires incomprehensible. I am passionate about many things. I have the desire to be a runner, if you will. Taking a step -- a basic principle we learn when we are very young. Most of us learn to walk within the first 18 months of our birth. It's something we do every day. When my mom died, I forgot how to walk. I forgot the very thing that we do every day. I might not have literally forgetten, but emotionally. I had to reteach myself how to walk again. Without her. Have you ever watched a baby walk after they've just learned? They wobble. They fall down. They get back up and try again. They wobble. They fall down. They get back up and try again. Each time they try, they become stronger. Each time I suffer a loss, I wobble. A lot of times, I fall down. Then I get back up and try again. Eventually I'd like to have the strength to where I don't fall down. Maybe someday, I won't even wobble. I'll just keep walking. Then after walking a while, I can hop up to nice jog. Eventually there will be more losses, but instead of falling down, or wobbling, I'll just slow down to a walking pace...keep breathing...keep walking...and then I can start to jog again.

That will take time. Time I'm willing to invest. It's a scary thing to admit that the thought of not living has crossed my mind a time or two. At least I wouldn't have to experience the pain, right? But no. That's not how it works, at least not for me. A philosophy is only as good as the philosopher I guess, but I believe that each day is a new opportunity to shine. Each day is a new day to change....hopefully always for the better. It's a philosophy in progress, of course. I don't wake up at 7am very often...but someday I will. I don't jog for most of my path...but someday I will. Life is about progress. It's about stamina. It's about endurance.

Here's to fighting depression. Here's to battling the days where we feel weary and drained. Here's to having friends who understand you even when they're on the other side of the country.

Here's to walking.