A Bagel is Not a Donut

I love donuts! I can't think of anytime in my life when I didn't like donuts. Do I have a favorite? Well, yes I do ... thanks for asking. Growing up I was introduced to the Hostess raspberry filled donut. You know, the one with the sugary coating. The one that comes in a pack of six, which made it fun growing up in a family of five. Well you would think my mom being the adult should get it but she was always so giving. So, it usually went to one of the four kids. Of course, we would always "try" to remember who got it last time but there was always a purposely fuzzy line. I will admit that I liked that donut so much that if there were times the last donut was still remaining I would enjoy every last bite knowing I was going to take a bullet for it and not get another one for a while but it was so worth it ... at least that's how it seemed until mom bought another pack and I was not allowed to have any because of my recent action. Anyway, I digress. As I got older I was introduced to other donuts and they were awesome but not as awesome as the raspberry filled slice of heaven. I really can't recall where I was or the circumstances that lead to the position I was in but I remember having to pick my breakfast on one occasion. I remember seeing what looked like a donut and was rather happy with not only picking one but picking two. As I put them on my plate they seemed a bit hard but I thought perhaps it was a different style of donut I hadn't been introduced to. I sat down ready for my two donuts and took a big bite. Let me just step aside here for a moment and say that my family never had bagels growing up, it was just one of those things we never had so I had no idea what one was. So, you can imagine my pure disappointment when I took a bite of a bagel for the first time thinking it was a donut. I remember thinking how dry it was and how bland it tasted. I missed my raspberry filled delight. With a smile I was educated on the fine arts of a bagel and how with butter, jam or cream cheese as it's friends it actually wasn't that bad. I personally like the strawberry cream cheese. Years down the road my incredible wife and beautiful girls moved to the East Coast. One of the first things I did was check to see if Hostess items were sold here, which they are but for whatever reason they didn't and still don't sell raspberry filled donuts. I was introduced to krispy kreme though before they ventured back west so that's how I justified it was okay. Every time I made it back west though I looked for those Hostess donut treats.  Imagine my luck though ... last trip back west was when Hostess closed it down for a while so I didn't have any raspberry filled moments of peace.

I often wonder what things would feel like to experience ... like being able to fly or swim to the bottom of the ocean. What it would be like to play a gig in front of thousands of people or make that last second shot in an NBA game. My imagination takes me all sorts of different places and I absolutely love it but it can only take me so far. I can close my eyes and play the meanest guitar rif pretending I am in Wembley but it doesn't give me the fullest experience. In fact, I never have played on any stage like that nor am I close enough to playing like McCready so do I really know what it would be like? What about other situations in life that I haven't experienced. Can I understand or feel what they are like? It would be interesting to have two folks give their feelings what it would feel like to get pulled over by the cops ... one that actually had and one that hadn't. What do you think their answers would be like? I can tell you for sure what it feels like on more than one occasion due to the heaviness of my right shoe. Some may say that the "Nurture vs. Nature" debate would help with this and I would agree. So why share this? Let me chat with my friends that are fighting depression. For me, I have found that there are different kinds of folks when they learn that you have depression. There are folks that don't know what to say but have the courage to put their arms around you and tell you how much they love you. There are the folks that don't know what to say and keep their distance relying on time to pass for you to "get better." There are the folks out there that think you are weak and should just be able to build up your self-esteem with positive thoughts and don't give credence to any mental illness. There are those that have depression and give as much love as they are able to give. Sad to say that I have found that you are mostly left alone with a few that share as much love as they are able to. This consumed me and still does at times but I think back to taking that bite of the bagel. I had no idea what it was and really didn't want to until someone helped me see how to eat it. There are A LOT of folks that don't know how to deal with depression and are kind of freaked out about it. I am slowly coming to grips that there are those bagel people out there that just don't know how to deal with friends or even family with depression and that is okay. Depression is weird ... having so much love and support helps bring happiness yet relying on people eventually brings disappointment and sadness as the lonely hours pass on. So where do you find that line? To be honest, that is what I am personally working on. My friends with depression. There are days when I know the only thing I can count on is the sun coming up the next morning. I thank God for sunrises! Eating a donut watching a sunrise makes it that much more peaceful too.

Looking Through Broken Eggs

In my late teens I had the privilege of working at a locally owned grocery store. As I mentioned in a previous post one of my responsibilities was to drive the milk truck. I also stocked the dairy and was the freight "receiver" in the morning. If I remember correctly, I would start the day around 5a or 6a, work until about 1p as the receiver and then come back around 3p to stock the dairy. The shifts weren't that great but overall I enjoyed my job and was earning money. Looking back I learned a lot of things at that lovely store. I learned that I really am not a big fan of getting up early on winter mornings especially as a receiver because that usually meant I had to dethaw the frozen locks on the gates for the trucks. Yep, just me standing in the dark in the early morning with a lighter by a frozen lock ... good times. I also found that if a pallet or cart of freight fell over as a trucker was unloading it off his truck that I preferred that freight to be things soft like toilet paper or paper towels. However, I never fully got what I preferred. I saw a large pallet full of soda fall over with soda going everywhere and cans flying in the air if they hit the ground just right ... had to take cover on that one. My least favorite spill was that of the rack of eggs that tipped over while it was being unloaded. Everything went into slow motion but nothing could be done. The rack hit the floor hard causing all sorts of damage to the eggs. I was convinced that by the looks of things all eggs had been broken and it was a lost cause. Now let me step back here for second and tell you about the rack the eggs were in. Each rack had around five shelves. Each shelf held about 120 or so carton of eggs. Do your math there and that's just a hot mess. Well, I did my least favorite thing and told my boss what had happened. I knew the fault was not mine but my boss would not be happy about the loss. I informed him I was sure it was a total loss. He paused for a moment and instructed me that another employee and I would need to go through every carton of eggs looking for ones that survived, wash them off and place them in a new container. Of course, I knew how long that would take and really wanted to ask him if he had been smoking something funny but I smiled and told him I would get right on it. I asked a dear friend of mine to help me, which at first I'm not sure how thrilled she was but we got to it. As we started we looked at the whole mess and knew that we would be there forever. Looking through the mess we found damaged egg after damaged egg and I felt that it was pretty much a waist of time but then we started to find eggs that had made it. We focused on conquering shelf by shelf and even began to laugh. When it was all said and done we were covered in egg goop, a lot of time had come and gone but we saved a good number of eggs. Plus, we ended up having the time of our life. I look back at that memory often and think of things I learned. To this day I can't crack an egg without thinking of the great crash of eggs.

I have had some time to think about "hope". I have reflected back in my life when I have felt it. I have looked at my life recently and have thought how hope and depression interact in the field of life. To me, hope is more than just an interesting idea to bring flashes of optimism to folks. Hope is a principle or a fundamental truth. As I looked back on my younger years in life I feel like I had limited hope because my outlook was on specific ending events. Let me give you an idea of what I mean. When I called a girl to ask her out on a date I would hope with all my might that she would say "yes" or "I was hoping you would call you handsome man." No matter how the call went, when it was over my "hope" for that event was over. I certainly feel this type of hope is okay but can be rather roller coaster like if it's all based on life events. It either makes you happy or sad in that moment or event. So, to me there has got to be more. Something that brings hope, peace, happiness. My belief is that stems from and grows with one's view and relationship with the Divine and that He loves me. When I have had disappointments in my life I have been able to have the perspective of what matters in life and find hope and peace. Now, throw in depression. For those that view depression as just being down or sad let me shed some light on that. For me, depression puts a choke hold on hope and does not like to let go. I try to look at life with the Divine perspective yearning for hope yet the choke hold continues. Is all hope lost then? Depression strives to make you think so. Life is pretty ugly when you feel that all hope is gone. Why try? Try because there is hope out there!! Via my psychologist, via my psychiatrist, via family, via loved ones, via Divine thoughts I am learning to work with the hairy beast depression. I have come to grips that for now he will be with me but that doesn't mean that I will give up and be a tumble weed to him. Sure there are times he will kick my tail but I am fighting back. Why? Because in the moments of fighting back I have felt glimpses of hope and it was awesome!! I have come to learn that just with the eggs of hot mess I have to go through carton after carton. There may be times when all the eggs are broken but I keep fighting because I know that I will find those eggs that weren't ruined. I keep fighting because I have felt hope in the midst of battle with depression so I know that I can feel it again. Yes, I know that dark and lonely times may be ahead but I also know that hope is out there too. I fight that someday I will be able to shift the balance of feeling more hope than darkness. No matter of what hot mess we may feel like we need not quit on ourselves. Yep, we have a sucky illness that can rob of us hope but he can not rob us of keep trying!