Looking Up

For the past few months, I've been experiencing a low level depression. It's weird, because I felt it as it settled in, and told James one day, "I don't feel well, mentally. This has nothing to do with you, so I'm sorry if I'm any kind of way. I'm just... not okay."

I don't remember exactly when that was, but it's been pretty persistent. Fortunately, it wasn't severe. I was still able to go about my daily life, interact with others, be generally pleasant, and all that. But a lot of stuff that happened during that time hit me a lot differently than it would have if I'd been firing on all cylinders. 

Anyway, I feel like it is lifting now.

Mal and I went to the lake at sunset, and it's just so pretty. It's been hot (not as hot as the Pacific Northwest, ironically, but very humid, even for here; I'd go so far as to say "muggy"), but there was a nice breeze off of the water, and there was no direct sun beating down on us.

One of the reasons I've been kind of bummed is that we've had to postpone our West Texas trip we'd planned for the fall, as the various and sundry home failings we've experienced have caused us to spend what we would have allocated to vacation to keeping the roof over our heads leak-free, and things like that. But on days like this, I remind myself about the first time I saw this lake park. Hannah, Mal, and I had a picnic there right after we saw our house for the first time. It was early November, and it was drizzling out. Everything was green and the lake was pretty full. I looked around in awe and thought, "If we could live here, we'd be so lucky." And we are.

Earlier this year, we got a ridiculous offer on this house, and put in an offer on a home in Temple. The house had been for sale for three months, but someone else put in a cash offer the same weekend we put in our contingent one. Immediately after that was when we had two pretty significant areas of water encroachment into our house. Between that and the fact that we have a chinaberry tree that the freeze killed for the most part, so it needs to come out, and that's going to cost close to $1000 to remove, it's been easy to be ambivalent about the house we live in now.

But this is a great neighborhood. We know so many neighbors now, including one, Belinda, who just last week gave us some lantana cuttings and sunflowers to plant in the yard. At night, it's dark. And quiet, except for the cicadas. We have lots of birds to watch, and space to explore. 

And the house itself is very... us. Since we moved in, we've added solar panels; solar screens; water catchment barrels; apple, fig, and pear trees; a raised-bed planter; irises given to us by another neighbor, Darryl; a bubba desert willow; a fire pit; and a playground. We are comfortable here. We are fortunate.

"Three Sisters" in back (thanks for the wisdom from our First Nations), cantaloupe in front.

And I always know these things: That we are comfortable, that I have a great family, that the good in my life far outweighs any bad. But, dang, your brain and chemicals can mess you up. I am glad that I'm in tune enough with myself at this point to recognize these periods and weather them without blowing setbacks too far out of proportion. But mostly, I'm very happy that this particular episode seems to be drawing to a close. I'm ready.