Declaration of War

I know the last few weeks I have been fairly absent from bloggerland, and for that I am sorry. I have no excuses for this, it's not like I have been busy doing many important things, and in fact just the opposite has been true. I have spent a lot of time surrounded by the darkness that sets in on me this time of year.

Today I have decided to fight back against the feelings that overwhelm me when the sun goes away. I am very familiar with this battle that I wage every year, and I know what needs done to combat it. Thanks goes out to Liz who reminded me of the light therapy that many people use around here to fight their seasonal depression.

Right now it's the middle of the day and I have every light in the house on, every candle lit and all the blinds open. I'm sure that I'm making the electric company happy with the extreme candlepower that my house is putting out right now. My home is putting out enough radiation to light up a small city and my electric meter is probably spinning fast enough for 5 houses, but if people say "It's better to light one candle than to curse the darkness" then I say "it's better to curse the darkness until it goes away and light every candle you have".

My neighbors may think I'm whacked, having all my lights on in the middle of the day, but I've never put much weight behind "worrying about what others may think of me". Right now I'm doing what is best for me, and if that means drawing more than my fair share out of the electrical grid, than "so be it". I have no more time to hide in the darkness.

Since this depression has set in, I have still been writing posts, I just haven't liked anything that I wrote. I actually have a new folder on my PC called "not posted", that after working many hours on these posts have dumped them into it. I would write for hours, and then edit and re-edit them, but in the end, decided I didn't like them and dumped them in this folder planning to try and fix them later. The problem is right now, in the frame of mind I am in, I don't like anything that I write. A couple weeks ago I would never have done this. No matter what I wrote I would post it and not much worry about whether I liked it or not. Why am I being so critical about my writing now? My friend Boston Pobble put it best when she said, "Post whatever the hell you want. We'll still read". All of my blogger friends are exceptional writers, but I have never once "judged any post that they write as critically as I judge my own", and I know they don't judge me either. I enjoy reading everything they write whether it's a story or just telling me about how their day went. So I have decided to follow my dear friend's advice and post this whether I like it or not. I'm in no mental condition right now to be judging my own writing, so if this, or anything I write is boring, please just bare with me and accept me for what I am.

I'm not making any promises. I won't say that I am going to post more often, or that my posts will be more interesting, or written better (I'm not ready to perform miracles yet). I can only say that I am trying, and I am going to try every day to "fight the good fight" and be a better blogger friend. There are so many things I still want to do with my life and none of them are getting done while I sit, swallowed up in this depression. I will take it one day at a time; do the best I can and continue to "light my candles, and curse the darkness until it goes away"...

If you are wondering about the pictures I'm including in this post, they really have little to do with what I am talking about, they are just pictures of our first snowfall this morning. Maybe that's what got me going....