1. What did you do in 2015 that you'd never done before?
Dragon boating. Hired movers. Worked with heat-moldable plastics and foam to make costume armor. Moved a fishtank to a new apartment. Built an aquarium stand. Made a video (of ridiculous). LICKED AN ICE CREAM CONE (got a frenectomy so now I can stick out my tongue).

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I didn't really do resolutions this past year. There was just a lot going on. I did start using HabitRPG/Habitica, though, so I've been working on actually eating lunch and getting regular on doing any basic self and pet care. I have some goals in mind for the new year... they're not super organized yet, but let's try:
- exercise to get strong enough to kick ass/keep up once the dragon boating season starts, also to keep my back from being stupid and to have better body mechanics at work
- get back to meal planning
- make enough things to be in at least one craft fair in 2016
- figure out the next steps for my career
- take time for myself to actually relax and rejuvenate AND NOT FEEL GUILTY FOR IT
- make time to connect with friends, whether in person, chat, skype, or letter
- develop a meditation/mindfulness practice --- I'm starting with a Moments jar, where I write down lovely moments and read them at the end of the year. I have one from NYE in mind.

To Resolution Revolution it up, my word is selfcare.


3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No? I have so many pregnant friends right now oh god I'm dying of baby rabies. Must make so many tiny socks.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Nope.

5. Did anyone close to you get married?
Ben and Joe! Got a couple weddings coming up in 2016, too!

6. What countries did you visit?
Nada. It's been a while since I've been able to do much of any travel. We went to Chicago for Ben and Joe's wedding and to see Erica and Sam and the kids in November, though.

7. What would you like to have in 2016 that you lacked in 2015?
I'm getting sick of saying this: Financial stability. Better health. Better time management.

8. What events/dates from 2015 will be forever etched in your memory?
My 10 year college reunion
breaking the snow record in Boston
Meeting Jessie? Deciding to be friends with that group, at least.
The visit to Chicago, particularly time spent with the Teslas and their kids
Surprising Mom for her 60th bday

9. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Honestly? Not dying. It was a rough year. But setting up all the things to get care and such is definitely an achievement. Purging/decluttering a lot of shit before moving was also a pretty good achievement.

10. What was your biggest failure?
I feel like my biggest failure was missing so much work in the fall from illness and depression, but I also feel like that's a symptom.

11. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Got stitches (and a tetanus shot) for a cut in my hand after catching a knife that fell. That was fun to work with. I've had minor back tweakiness and have had to have a series of three cortisone shots in my right foot for a Morton's neuroma. (The second doc I saw for my foot was amazing and explained why I'm getting this pain instead of just giving me a shot... that was super recently, so I'm gonna get some orthotics and new shoes and hope it doesn't come back this time.) I had a MAJOR depression flare when trying to change brainmeds, and basically lost most of October and all of November to feeling like shit. Threw out my back and had to go to the ER in the last week of December, just to end on a strong note.

12. What was the best thing you bought?
Probably my laptop.

13. Whose behavior merited celebration?
This still stands: Will's. Over and over and over again. He's just really fucking great, folks. Also Aria has been awesome.

14. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
My ex-landlord was frustrating up through the very end. One of my roommates, at times. A client (who has since been fired). The TrashMan who lives in the dark parts of my brain. Whoever failed at making Cheerios actually gluten free. Trump + his supporters. The entire system that has cops killing black folks and getting away with it.

15. Where did most of your money go?
Moving and rent and paying off my student loans

16. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Gluten-free Cheerios! Making costume armor! Decorating for my Halloween party! Making spooky food! Making new friends!

17. What song will always remind you of 2015?
The entire Original Cast Recording of Hamilton

18. Compared to this time last year are you:
i. happier or sadder? Tough one. Sadder most recently, so it sticks more.
ii. thinner or fatter? Fatter, but also stronger.
iii. richer or poorer? Out of debt, so that's pretty great. Feeling the hit from not getting paid in October, though.

19. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Well, while I still didn't get my boat in the water, I did get in a boat in water, so I'm gonna call that half achieved. Biking. Making stuff on the regular. Getting massage. Going outside. Going camping.

20. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Depression. Brain weasels. Dealing with moving apartments crap.

21. How did you spend Christmas? What was the best gift this Christmas?
I spent Christmas at my parents', as usual. I didn't get any particularly exciting gifts from family, because I knew what I was getting: the all-my-colors octopus duvet cover, and the tool set that I specifically asked for. For the record, I am completely in love with the duvet cover, and it changes my entire room for the better. Mom's evil cat, Molly, finally let me pet her, which is pretty much a Christmas miracle.

22. Did you fall in love in 2015?
I fell in a whole lotta like in ways that became problematic because of situational crap.
Still loving on Will.

23. How many one-night stands?
I'm changing this question because its stupid. To "How many people did you kiss?"
The answer, I believe, is three.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
Still watching S.H.I.E.L.D. Didn't watch much TV this year, though. I'm way behind on Capaldi's Doctor Who. I started Jessica Jones, and I'm planning on watching Daredevil and Leverage, though.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Hate is a strong word. I need to find a new question for this one.

26. What was the best book you read?
Oooh. I really enjoyed Rysa Walker's Chronos Files (yay kindle!), and I'm enjoying Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles audiobooks.

27. What was your greatest (musical?) discovery?
HAMILTON. Also Mouths of Babes

28. What did you want (to do) and get?
Got a reliable oven, people to go out and paddle on the water with (dragon boat team), new friends. A trip to Chicago. The aforementioned Christmas gifts.

29 What did you want and not get?
Still no dancing, still no century ride. Still no second sweetie. A bigger bedroom.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Inside Out. Star Wars: The Force Awakens was pretty cool, too.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 32. I was moving so soon after that so I didn't have a party. Went to see Lindsey Stirling play in Boston. Will got me an ice cream cake that I could actually eat. And Carolyn brought me cupcakes that I could actually eat. So that was pretty rad.

32. What one thing would have made your year more satisfying?
Not having that horrible bout of depression. Actual gluten-free cheerios. Dating stuff working out differently.

33. How would you describe your fashion concept in 2015?
Heading away from practical-femme towards dapper/comfy

34. What kept you sane?
Will. Kitties. Friends.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I don't think I actually have an answer to this question right now.

36. What sociopolitical issue stirred you the most?
feminism.
gun violence
police brutality
the upcoming presidential election and its ensuing shitshow

37. What is one thing you would go back and re-do if you could?
Wouldn't have messed with my meds. (And during that depression, I would've said a bunch of other things, too.)

38. Who was the best new person you met?
I'm going to angle this slightly, but deciding to be friends with Aria has made my life a lot more awesome.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2015.
Adulting is hard, yo. But satisfying when it works. Will really has my back. I have quality humans in my life.




(Aaaand, previous years' for comparison..... the tag goes back to 2004)

This is where my thoughts were meandering the morning before I decided not to be stressed (still working on that, btw):

I'm feeling so frustrated lately. My body isn't cooperating. My moods are crap. My motivation is low. And that's with having my record-setting week last week, work wise -- 20 hours of massage, 14 clients. Massage therapy full time. And oh many did my arms hurt.

Lately I wonder if I should be trying to find other work. If I'd hate it. Yesterday, if maybe I could do both. In order to do 20 hours of massage, I need to be available for more than 30 because of time between and breaks and stuff. I wonder how much I should be trying to find other work, how much that undermines my biz. At the same time. I wonder if I shouldn't be putting all my efforts into getting ends to meet however I can, even if that means having fewer hours at my biz. But how can a biz be successful if I cut back? It's all so circular.

And there's the also the feeling of lack of free time, already pervasive with babysitting not even 10h/wk (though that's technically my obligation). I wonder if actual money were exchanged if that would feel less frustrating. Probably not, because the hours still suck and so does the communication. Also, some of that feeling of lack comes from never having a free evening to make plans with people.

And I'm at a weird point in my biz where I have too many clients to cut back a lot, but not enough to always fill my schedule. And then there's the piece where massage therapy full time doesn't seem to be enough to pay the bills and still have much fun. Or live the lifestyle I want, at least, or be comfortable when the support structures for low income are taken away, as is already happening.

I don't know if I have what it takes to basically start another biz, some sort of content creation internet based thing that could provide a more passive income with less physical, less 1-on-1 work, that I could do alongside massage. Maybe if I had an innovative idea, but I really don't. I guess in some ways, I do want a "regular" job, one with a more typical schedule, enough pay and maybe even benefits. It feels safer, anyhow. And has growth possibilities.

What is scariest is, I could get by on massage therapy full time if my body holds up, but there is absolutely no growth potential... can't work more hours, physically, and can't raise rates through the roof. *sigh*

I might need someone to tell me going back to school is not practical.

Tonight, just now, I decided to stop being stressed out. It was kind of amazing.

I spent a couple hours earlier this evening talking to Sarah about my various woes--my current career path seems to cap out at just-barely-making-it-if-I'm-busting-ass, thinking about moving in the fall when my lease is up and how expensive the housing market is around here, how many injuries I've had in the past 10 months and what that means.

(Seriously, in June I got hit in the eye, developed a retinal tuft from that, and then had vertigo for two weeks. In October I badly sprained my left ankle, and was diagnosed with Sjögren's Syndrome. In January I got a cortisone shot in my right foot for Morton's Neuroma. February was depression-tastic. This past weekend I threw out my back. Something wants me to slow the heck down.)

Anyway. And then I let the brain weasels have some time looking at job ads (earlier it was looking at apartments) on craigslist and sort of came to the conclusion that I should just be me and everything will eventually work out. Maybe I need to stop pushing so hard, and then I'll get hurt less. Maybe eventually I'll figure out what it is I need to be putting into the universe to get back what I need. But I do need to start blogging, in a more professional sense, not just (incredibly sporadic) journalling here.

And I thought, well, today hasn't been such a bad day, despite my back being stiff and sore. I went to bed late after sketching for a while. I slept in, and woke to kitty snuggles. I journalled a bit. Will came over and took care of heavy and/or tall things that I shouldn't be doing yet, and we had a snuggle and chat. I made a card for my four-year-old "nephew," which involved lots of cutting and gluing of colorful papers (oh how I wish we lived closer to those friends and those kids). The brain weasels took over for a while midday, but then Sarah came by and we had sushi for dinner and watched the fish and talked. Not bad at all. Maybe if I can balance all the Things What Need Doing with some of this stuff, everything can actually be okay.

Now I just have to figure out how to implement the No More Stressing campaign. Unfortunately, I still have Unresolved Issues around yoga. Maybe one day I can get back to that. I've seen a new therapist twice so far, and I'm going back on Tuesday. I can't decide yet if she'll actually be helpful for me. I am skeptical. But then, I am generally the most skeptical and defiant ever, so I'm giving her a chance.

Also, it just occurred to me that when I am not making things on a somewhat regular basis, my body freaks out and breaks. Huh. Interesting.

I suppose now I should start with actually going to bed. Both cats are curled up tails over noses. My sleepytime tea is gone, so I'm out of excuses.

How do you keep on living? I mean, it sounds easy, you just keep not dying. But how do you keep on living with this fucking disease of depression that creeps into everything you've ever loved about yourself and tears it to shreds?

How do you keep going when your eyes feel dull and you don't want to do anything anymore, not even sleep? Sleep is fitful and at the end you have to wake back up and deal with the world again. You don't even want to cry any more, except you keep doing that when you least expect it. You haven't really eaten, but you still feel like throwing up.

You can almost remember sometimes that something could be beautiful--you stop and look and your breath catches for a moment--and then the weight inside pulls you back down into the hollowness, back under the water you've been treading for so long and you're so, so tired.

How do you run a business when you can't even bear to think about tomorrow, when the hours stretch out to unbearable lengths, the clock ticking so slowly that you're sure it's stopped? When keeping commitments feels like pulling teeth?

How the heck do you beat this damn disease? Where is the faith that it will get better with the spectre of disease always hanging over you? How do you reach out of yourself and find help when you're drowning in a hole inside and the shore is too steep to scramble back out of this time?

There are a lot of things going on in the world right now. But I only have the energy to talk about one of them. Since Robin Williams died of suspected suicide, a lot of people have been talking about depression and suicide.

About awareness. Ending the invisibility and shame. Maybe even about how broken our current system is in dealing with mental health.

I feel the need to contribute to this conversation. To spread some more awareness. At the same time, the thought of posting this is terrifying for so many reasons. But maybe terrifying is good. As long as it doesn’t get back to my clients.

Every one of you knows someone who has struggled with depression and suicidal ideation. I know this because you all are my friends, and I have for a long time, and continue to, struggle. Yes, there have been times when I felt the only way to make anything bearable — not better, not good, just bearable — would be to take my own life. This isn’t pretty, but its real.

Many of you know I have depression, but many of you have had no idea. Some of you know that I take medication daily. Not to “be happy” or “not feel sad” or so many of the things people say about mental health medications. I take medication so I can sometimes feel like myself. So the dark curtains part and I can see the sun, I can show people the light in myself, I can get up and get out and do good in the world and enjoy the things I actually enjoy but depression sometimes tells me I don’t.

Some of you know that I’m allergic to cats but keep them anyway because I love them and they’re a reason I need to stay alive every day. That once upon a time, the reason I *didn’t* kill myself when I was down in the deepest darkest places, is that I didn’t know who could take care of my cats and keep them happy. Not pretty. Real.

Some of you know that I wrote prolifically in high school, hundreds of poems, dozens of filled journals, mostly about being depressed, scared, confused, sometimes romanticizing it, sometimes needing to bleed it out of myself somehow, sometimes just playing with language like any normal creative teen. There was a year where I completely retreated, lost the connection I’d had with many of my family members, avoided going to school to the point that even the popular kids in my classes expressed their concern about *me*, the girl who blended in with the walls. I still struggle to feel connected after that, now fully 14 years later. I got lost somewhere and couldn’t show you where I’d gone, and that trip to the depths changed my experience on such a fundamental level that I was never sure if I could relate to you afterward. To be fair, I don’t just have depression. I also have anxiety, specifically about social situations, so that sure didn’t help with the whole connecting part, trusting folks not to judge me, or just not understand. After all, family is the toughest love of all.

I have almost never not known I am loved. I remember a friend in college desperately telling me that I was loved, that her friendship and that of our little group should be enough to keep me alive. But that’s not what depression is about. Its about a monster that lives inside your head and tells you horrible things, day in and day out (after this many years, I call mine the Trash Man). Its about a monster that you may not even know is there. Even knowing I have depression, knowing I have this history, it is adaptable and slimy and sometimes finds a way around the ramparts I’ve built and gets its tendrils back in the soft parts of my brain and I forget that its lying to me again.

It changes constantly, from day to day, though sometimes it is the same for days on end. Sometimes I have depression like you have a headache, dully aware of it behind everything, but not a driving force. Sometimes it is like pneumonia and I can’t breathe for sobbing. Sometimes, a cancer that spreads through my entire body, making my limbs heavy and painful, my brain foggy; terminal, unrelenting. Some days are good, some are bad, some are unending misery. Some days I can blissfully forget that I have a monster living underneath my skin.

It is both better and worse that I am self-employed. I can make my schedule such that I have down-time when everything feels amazingly overwhelming. I don’t have to hide at work the same way some folks need to from their employers. I work in a generally solitary environment, specifically designed to be as calming, peaceful and relaxing as possible (and I’ve done a damn good job of making it so), and am lucky enough that generally my work revives me. But there is plenty of work on my business that I don’t get done because I’m sick with this depression. I could be more successful. No one pays me to just turn up and stare at a screen sometimes, or to take sick days. There are days I do have to hide—there are days I call out of my busiest day of the week running around the city doing chair massages because I can’t get out of bed or everything makes me feel like crying, or I’m just plain exhausted for no apparent reason. And I am afraid I’ll lose those lucrative gigs that overwhelm me so much but are delightfully steady income when I actually turn up.

So that is a tiny window into my life with depression. When I first started writing this post, it started funny:

I wish that turning 18, or 20, or EVER came with a manual, How to Be an Adult. With chapter headings: How to Go to Work Every Day; How to Keep Your Apartment Clean; How to Cook Healthy Meals on a Regular Basis (subheading How Not to Waste the Food You Bought); How to Remember to Do Laundry AND Pay the Bills; How to Not Spend the Entire Day in Your Pajamas; How Not to Run Out of Cat Food (How to Get Off Your Ass and Go Buy Some Cat Food, No Really).

How to Have the Energy to Keep Going.

How to Know When to Ask for Help. (subheadings: How to Get the Kind of Help You Need; Navigating Health Insurance; What is Normal, Anyway?)

But depression isn’t funny. It is frustrating and real and not about any one of us in particular. It is a nasty disease that almost never entirely releases it’s grip on people. Remission is a word they use for cancer. I use it for depression. It’s always tentative. It could always come back. But there are leaves.*



And while I’ve needed to share my story, a lot of people have talked about this better than I have.
These comics put depression into easy-to-digest bites, packed with insight, for those of you who are visually minded, or just completely at a loss: http://www.buzzfeed.com/hnigatu/comics-that-capture-the-frustrations-of-depression
Allie Brosh of Hyperbole and a Half has an amazing piece about depression and the epic nothingness that it can feel like.

*https://medium.com/the-archipelago/not-everyone-feels-this-way-7e21574a2dfd