Just do.

It should already be abundantly clear, but I've struggled with depression for years, easily for the past twenty years. There had been a time, I suppose around 2008 that I saw someone and was prescribed Xanax and after a month I felt the same way and just stopped taking it. Earlier this year, I was prescribed something more for the anxiety I was dealing with as everything was changing, getting divorced, not seeing my Daughter, moving, and resetting, which gets harder for me as the years go by.

I suppose my health isn't horrible, but I have multiple chronic medical issues and one of them will end up killing me unless something else does first. So I don't often 'feel good' and I am 100% sure that people my age don't typically 'feel good'. But today, I had this thought, it was accidental, but man... It had an impact.

At some point you'll look back and wish you felt this good.

I can digest that two different ways, and I'll let you decide which way I chose:

1) Things are only going to gradually get worse.

or

2) Don't waste the day.

I still have bouts of depression, I'm not taking any meds for it, I stopped the buspirone earlier this year when I finally got my life back on track, I don't like taking medicine, I've always believed that the more you rely on external chemicals, the less your body will be able to resolve issues on it's own. To give you an idea of how crazy I am about this, I almost need to have a migraine before I'll take a Tylenol.

So I have this day, and this will be one less day I have for my remaining time in this life, it nudges me to do.. just... do.

A lot of the time, it's not so easy to 'just do' but then I look back on all of these years, and have to laugh because, the last time it was easy to 'just do', I was a kid. In a masochistic kind of way, I think that actually doing things means even more now, because it's not as easy to do whatever it is I want to do with the day, right?

So, that's a win.

I remember telling the ex once, the way a guy's brain can sometimes seem to make no sense at all, but as a guy, it makes total sense. Let me give you a perfect example:

Many years ago, after it was discovered that I couldn't join the military, the disappointment of that was really difficult to get over. Eventually I joined the C.A.P , a search and rescue squadron, and while that may sound adventurous, you have to understand it was largely overweight middle-aged guys driving their cessnas around. The SAR squadrons actually went out into the field and trained. Part of that training included what used to be called 'Ranger School' although that was a terrible label for it, it was just an advanced outdoor skills class that lasted a week. But more interesting were the winter survival trainings we did. Winters here get cold, really cold, with plenty of snow and winds that blow down from Canada that will chill you to the bone. Even as a kid, it would eventually be enough to send you indoors. Winter survival training meant there was no 'going inside' and so you just deal with the cold.

As a guy, you grin and bear it, you want it to end, but you'll never be the guy that taps out, if others do, it just increases your resolve to endure. The guys complaining that their toes are numb, that warms your toes (even though they're numb too.), the guys that spiral and go from one complaint after the other, cause you to keep your mouth shut, and think to yourself 'At least your not THAT guy!'

Eventually, it's over, and the very first thing you think of is 'I did it!'

Yes, the experience sucked, but you got through it, and so that makes the experience worthwhile in some strange, only-guys-will-understand way.

I think I explained that well enough for it to make sense to most people.

So it's almost like those previous experiences, difficult, painful, exhausting, whatever, it's almost like that was just training for now, for dealing with the days you don't feel good, for accepting that you'll never get yesterday back, for admitting that at some point, I'll look back and wish I felt this good.