Winter Blues
Winter
As I sit here in the coffee shop it is a gray January day with a light rain falling, promising to turn to snow. This is an accurate metaphor for my mood of late. I’m prone to depression, get treatment for it, but this is probably Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). I haven’t been able to do much writing, and what I have written I haven’t posted. This is unusual. My goal is to put something up every week and I haven’t come close.
I used to have two of those lights which are supposed to help, but I gave one away and the other is over the bathtub I haven’t been able to use lately. Why no baths? Leaks. The upstairs bathroom sink cold water faucet started leaking as well.
For me, things happening around me are often related to the state of my psyche. Water is also a symbol of the unconscious mind, and leaks are about something important trying to come to consciousness. I am engaged in a struggle to keep things buried. Thus, leaks I am slow in fixing, and gloom leading to inaction. It’s easy to guess how my meditation practice is going.
My meditations are supposed to have the goal of being totally in the moment-no thinking about the pas, the future, or Donald Trump. I can stay with just observing my breath for maybe five seconds. I usually am able to stay with my breath or a prayer for several minutes before drifting off to be with Dorothy and Toto. I come back to the breath, stay there a while and drift off again. Currently, I obsess.
I think the real issue for me is aging. I am 74 years old. Lifting a fifty pound sack of ice melt salt is hard. I used to throw fifty pound sacks around. I cannot go above the second step on the ladder for fear of falling off. I sometimes cheat and go to the third step, no higher. My balance is not very good. I have stayed at the same weight for some time but the muscles are shrinking and the belly is growing.
I forget stuff. I have always been somewhat forgetful, an ADD-ADHD symptom, but it’s worse lately. I am going to have to go back to writing reminders down, a habit I have slipped away from. I also head downstairs to do something, do two or three other things and head upstairs with the task not done. At least I get some exercise going up and down the stairs all day.
I know this too will pass, but I am tired of waiting