The Week of Reflection Has Been Indefinitely Postponed

Normally the week between Christmas and New Year's is when I do my best thinking. It's a kind of limbo in which the old year is kind of over, with the big bang of Christmas - but the new has not begun. I look back, consider what I did well and what I could have done better, and think about what I'd like to achieve, and who I'd like to be in the New Year.

Yeahno, not happening this year. My one reflection is more of a confession, one which will come as no surprise to those who know me personally: the truth is I spent much of the latter half of 2013 down the rabbit hole of depression, my old nemesis. The further truth is, I'm not out yet.

Depression, as you may have noticed, is not great for blogging. I hate the sound of my own voice and everything I type sounds insipid, so after a while I just stop. Add to that, I'm just about as broke as it's possible to be and still be under a roof, so basically anything I do that doesn't make money seems self-indulgent. There are a lot of heads depending on me to keep that roof up there. Not even sure how pottery is going to fit in, if I'll have to get a job...it's all too much to think about.

My husband and nephew went out of state to my in-laws for the holiday. I had planned to go as well, but then the ice storm took out our power around 11 pm on the 23rd, and I felt someone should stay with the pets and the house, to guard against frozen pipes and other calamities. I also felt there was no point all of us being cold. I'm sort of a grinch even in the best years, so missing out on all the Christmas festivities was no hardship; in fact in other years I have thought of a couple of days alone in my house as my Christmas gift to myself. This year, sitting in the increasingly cold dark, wondering when or if the heat and light would return, I thought I had inadvertently created my internal world on the outside.

But then I saw the flashing yellow lights go by around 9 pm. Unfortunately for my corny little metaphor - but very fortunately for myself and the four-legged ones - CMP had come to my neighborhood. As so often happens in this mental state, I sort of hate myself for even having depression: tens of thousands of people in Maine are still in the cold dark, what have I got to be depressed about?

In what might be a positive sign, I spent the day cleaning the house, which had gotten into a dreadful state. My husband and nephew are both slobs, and my choices are a) clean up after them; b) nag them daily; or c) just leave it. I lost energy to fight that battle sometime after Thanksgiving. It's clean now, though, and it feels so much better.

Not sure I'll post this; if I do it's unlikely that I'll leave it up long, because as soon as I re-read it I'll delete it as despicable whining. Or whinging; the British way sounds even lower. I still have a few days to fight my way out; I'd hate to start 2014 this way.