Wherein I Launch a New Writing Project with the Approval of My Friend Lisa B.

So I nearly took myself off of FaceBook this week.

Why, you ask? Because after reading through people's posts, I felt like literally EVERYONE is handling the pandemic better than I've been. I understand intellectually that things on social media are curated--sometimes heavily so--but still. Why is everyone making quilts and baking and biking and taking classes online and what have you while I'm mostly just painfully pacing around my house, waiting for evening to come and hoping that when it does, I can sleep?

Oh. Wait a minute. I know why. I've been depressed. Severely depressed.

Here's the thing. Clinical depression isn't the same thing as feeling sad or blue or down in the dumps. Actually, those things start to look good to you when you're clinically depressed because then you would at least feel normal. No. All you feel is this painful, painful hollowness--like the person you were has shriveled up and mostly disappeared and whatever scraps are left of you could fit into your big toe. With room to spare. You can't laugh. You can't cry. Depression just has its talons in you. It also messes with your ability to concentrate, to focus, so reading and writing become tremendously difficult.

And speaking of writing. I'm afraid to. I feel like I'm starting all over, which is why I'm cranking up the blog again to make me do it. No one really reads blogs anymore--so SAFETY-- but yet I still like to write for an audience other than just for myself. I thought I'd use this platform to talk honestly about my experiences, while also commenting here and there about--oh you know--THIS DAMN PANDEMIC THANG WE GOT GOING ON. But I'll talk about other things, as well. I thought I'd mix up the posts with observations about things that give (or gave) me delight. This idea was suggested to me by Lisa B when she told me about a a collection of short essays by the poet Ross Gay called Book of Delights and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude. (I'm acting here like I knew who Ross Gay is before Lisa B mentioned him, which I didn't.)

OK. This post is verging on or has possibly surpassed the TLDR category. Most of the posts will be much, much  shorter.  I promise. And thank you for reading.