A Path

• This has been a full week. 
• Much time spent out of the house getting paperwork sorted for financial aid. Feeling grateful for kind and helpful people in the mix. 
• Sleep disruptions. Can a person be tired of being tired due to sleep disruptions? 
• Working more things through in therapy ending with taking a photo of the poster paper with all our scribbles on it for later reference. 
• Spending time with a friend whose health is deteriorating fast. So scarily fast that we looked at each other and dropped f bombs when she told me a doctor broached the topic of end of life care. 

I just remembered that I have a family commitment this weekend. Hours of small talk with people I know but don't socialize with more than a few times a year. In a setting of 300+ people. My idea of torture. No one I would share what's really going on in my life with. That part is okay. I can do the surface socializing but find it exhausting.

It's been hard work for me to learn how to socialize with any skill. I much prefer one on one conversations. I know I tend to talk and talk and have had to train myself to listen, listen. Remembering appropriate social skills feels like being somewhat deaf and straining to hear a conversation. I much prefer being like the guy in the graphic on a solo path letting all those thoughts out.

I told my therapist yesterday that I've spent the past 40 years never letting the phrase I am depressed cross my lips. Befriending the thought and letting it be what it is has helped something shift. Given me hope. How ironic is that? Hey, I'm depressed and suddenly I feel hopeful about life. I told her if that stronghold of thought could be broken what else is waiting for me? I'm placing my bet on good things to come.

But not until after the weekend.