Tears flowed easily all morning as I felt pain radiate from my burned hand and crawl all over my body. It coursed like blood through me, stabbing me with the overwhelming sadness that has become my default emotion.
I made myself get out of my car and sit under a tree in front of my children’s school. No more tears, Bridgette. Just write your sadness.
My injured hand jerked across the paper as I wrote sappy poems about the meaning of life, letters to my younger self and declarations of finding happiness.
Then I looked up and one of my friends was standing there. The sunlight shining through the trees framed her face and she looked like an angel.
“You looked sad, so I thought I’d come over.”
We chatted for a few minutes about the book she just completed, our children and the power of music.
This is life, I thought.
Connection.
Love.
Compassion.
She picked up her boy from kindergarten and then brought over a CD of the band we had been talking about. As she pulled away in her truck, she and her joyous boy called and waved to me.
Thank you for that act of love friend.
You pulled me back.
Sometimes I feel like a caricature of sadness, like I have one of those little storm clouds drawn over my head with rain falling on me.
It’s ridiculous and I want to slap myself awake.
But it is what it is.
I have been using that expression for weeks now. During that time, I’ve barely written anything. I’m not running. I’m impatient and being a crap wife, mother, daughter and friend.
It is what it is, though, right?
I’ve been telling myself that I’m using that phrase because I’ve reached a place of acceptance.
Nope.
It’s just another excuse. Another way to say “poor me” and not make myself accountable for my actions.
It is what it is.
Blah.
Enough already.
Time to fight.
That CD my friend gave me is a band called “Nahko and Medicine for the People.”
This is the stuff.
Seriously good medicine.
One song in particular, “Warrior People,” has become my rallying cry. I’ve been listening to it about a dozen times a day and singing it loudly until my voice cracks. Some of my favorite lyrics:
“I’m just a human being on another fucking journey.”
“I teach my children who to trust and how to listen.”
“I will learn to be peaceful but I keep my knife at my side.”
“Used to be restless, now I am relentless.”
“Everything you do in life is definitely relevant.”
I’m really getting bored and tired of feeling like an injured puppy lying around licking my wounds.
Time to be the warrior that I know I am.
As I write these words, I can’t help but feel like a broken record on repeat. I’ve said them before. I’ve been in this place before. I keep feeling stronger, but then…
It’s always something.
There is always another stumble down the stairs of sadness.
Always.
And it’s OK.
I have lots of fight left in me.
As I struggle along, I keep my eyes upward these days. The sky has become a beacon of hope for me. I stare up and remind myself how small I am and how truly out of my hands some things are.
“He built himself a house,
his foundations,
his stones,
his walls,
his roof overhead,
his chimney and smoke.He made himself a garden,
his fence,
his thyme,
his earthworm,
his evening dew.He cut out his bit of sky above. And he wrapped the garden in the sky and the house in the garden and packed the lot in a handkerchief and went off lone as an arctic fox through the cold unending rain into the world.”
–“Fairy Tale”, Miroslav Holub
Bridgette Tales 
People always give great advice for getting over sadness. Get up. Get Busy. Do something. I dunno. I am not sad very often but when I am, I just need to be sad.
I hope today is a better day.
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I’m often so proud and impressed by how you share your journey here. You are not a record on repeat, you may have said there words before, but that was a different part off the album. One of my teachers at RSC told me once that our children learn so much from our striving, not our perfection. I think that is true of all of us. You are beautiful in your striving for healing, you have not given up. Remeber dear Warrior a typical tour of duty is 12 months, then rest, repairs, and back in. I sometimes feel like I’ve been fighting so long, taking a respite to recharge, to refocus, to remember what works, is important. To me this is what it feels like you are describing, and now here you are with renewed vigor, to not just let it be what it is, but to make what it is better. In time fewer days will feel like a tour of duty, the need for respite will be fewer and further between. In the mean time, allow yourself times of rest, time to find your center if you feel blown askew.
Sorry to take up so much space here, you just say so much here that is healing and helpful, I wanted to share something with you that I hope lends a different perspective to what you are perceiving as negative.
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Bridgette, what’s going on? This sounds like more than one day of sadness. Are you mourning the loss of someone? Going through the madness of boredom? This sounds like a case of depression – which really warrants a trip to see your doctor. Worried about you. You may not feel like it, but can I ask you to please promise yourself to go for at least one long walk each day? The exercise will do amazing things for your chemistry. I’m sending you a really big hug. Please care for that self! (one other trick, when all else fails – regarding self care: If this was your child, parent, friend…would you sit by and allow them to suffer without getting the care they needed, or would you poke, prod, drag, them to get help?? YOU are just as valuable as those you love.)
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One more thing that is amazingly easy but really shifts mood – take a vitamin D supplement. Specifically D3. This was something I tried last year when really struggling and just…didn’t think it would have the impact it did. Truly made a HUGE difference. It seemed too easy! (Despite how “easy” it was, it truly impacted a lot of things.) Obviously the struggles don’t disappear overnight, but having the head space to deal with them – the ability to just breathe – really made all the difference. Again, sending you a huge, huge hug.
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Um Raechelle? This is a blog about depression…
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Thank you for your beautiful writing!
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