The Sun is Coming Out

Remember those commercials for some antidepressant that visualized depression as a cloudy day and the lifting of depression through use of said antidepressant as a sunny day? Well that's kind of how I'm feeling these days, don't know that it's all the new antidepressant that I started on Friday, maybe it's got some to do with the new anti diabetic medication I started at the same time, maybe it's just having some hope that these two will help me to be a little less anxious, less scared, less suspicious of others. I wrote here late last year about going to counseling and being ready to actually accomplish something with it. I wrote here too about finishing counseling and feeling pretty good about it. It helped, but there was still that self doubt, that "nobody likes me" feeling. I recall my mother feeling the same way, I recall her telling me when I was about 16 that nobody liked her. I sang that song to her, you know the one, "Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I'll go eat worms..." She'd never heard that song before, she smiled her beautiful smile, and climbed back in bed.

Depression, it entangles the good, it warps our views of ourselves and of the way others view us. For me, it warps my value of myself, my ability to see that my girls are happy and healthy and that my family loves me, even if we have lives which keep us busy and apart. The sun is starting to peek from behind these big dark clouds, the sun is coming out for me.

In an Instant

Yesterday I went outside and looked at the sky. The Thunderbird's flew overhead, looping, speeding, playing. They are amazing! All day at work we listened as planes flew around us, 450 mile an hour, so many spectators filing in the gates all day. I can see all that from my office at work, I love the air races, many years I've sat and watched as the old planes climbed high in the sky, daredevils plummeting quickly toward the earth, swooping up just in time. I've sat in those box seats, many years ago with Sydney. I've been on that field and right outside the airport for over a decade as the races took place. The traffic is frustrating to navigate through when everyone is out there, the planes flying overhead for days is loud, the buildings rattling and not being able to hear people calling in make work hard to endure. In an instant today, all that ceased to matter. In an instant, I was reminded how insignificant all those annoyances are.

The pilot who died today had been flying for nearly his entire life, yet today was his last flight. For nearly 40 years, spectators have sat and watched those races, less than 20 casualties have occurred in the history of the event, that is until today. Today there are at least 20 families without their loved ones, tonight there is the family of the pilot, the families of people who don't yet know the fate of their loved ones.

Remember to be thankful every second, because life can change, in an instant.