Depression

I've been in a mild state of depression for the past few weeks or so.
There is no one reason for this, certainly no one is the cause of it, I
just have been feeling more down than usual lately. Going to work every
morning and staying there is exceedingly difficult for me. I like my
job, I like my co-workers, I'm treated fairly for the most part, but I'm
sick of working. Twelve years is a long time. Yes, I know, many better
people than I have worked for much longer, but I bet even the best of
them has just wanted to pack it all in from time to time, unless you're
one of that rare breed, someone doing what they absolutely love. I used
to love to read. All through school and beyond I loved to read. And,
indeed, if I'm on vacation and find myself with a good book, that love
of reading is temporarily rekindled. I love it when that happens. But
unfortunately, twelve years of reading crap have jaded me.

I'm grateful for what I have, really I am, but if a guy can't use his LJ
to just talk about his feelings, then what's the point?

I long for April, when I can again board a plane and visit Caroline in
Milwaukee. I think back to the magic that was my trip back in November.
Can that magic be rekindled? I honestly don't know. Maybe one must
create a new kind of magic, equally wonderful but different, each time.
Being in a loving relationship of equals is still a very new thing for
me: I certainly wasn't in it with Tammy, who felt the only way she could
get what she wanted was by threatening, taunting, and hitting me, or
withholding any signs of affection from me. What I have now is so
different from all that, and I find myself having to learn how to walk
in a relationship without my theoretical hand being in front of my
theoretical face in preemptive self-defense.

Bob, one of my co-workers, has gone over my passport with me to be sure
the information in it is correct. I've signed it, so that part of my
pre-trip requirements is completed. I expect to have my ticket at the
end of the week, all things being equal.

TV-ating from the Norm

Time for another poll.

[Poll #1141444]

Almost Done

Okay, 3:30. I'm outta hear at 3:50. Well, I'm finished work, anyway ...
My ride doesn't get here until 4:12. I think I'll stop off at the
grocery store on my way home to get some Coke, unless I get Chuckles the
laugh-a-minuted driver I had coming home last Friday.

It has been suggested that I pursue the possibility of clinical
depression. I appreciate the concern behind that suggestion. I don't
believe what I am experiencing to be clinical depression, neither does
my doctor. I was on anti-depressants in the mid-nineties, under pressure
from Tammy. My doctor and I both decided that the only reason I was on
them was that Tammy wanted me to be on them, because she didn't want to
be the only one in the relationship who was on these things. Please
understand, Tammy was an exception in so many ways, I don't want to
imply for a second that all, or even most people who need these
medications are like that. But it was most certainly the case with
Tammy, though.She tried so hard to get me to believe I was dealing with
the same things she believed she was dealing with. Poor girl, I don't
know if she even realized that she destroyed her relationship with her
family, with me, with her friends, with my friends, with her partner
after me, and with the medical profession that tried to help her.