Hold On, Let Go

I'm the youngest in my family, which brought many perks and struggles growing up. First, let me just get this out of the way ... yep, there were times when I got a little more attention and/or "things". Some may call this spoiled. There were also the struggles that came along as well, like being the test dummy in many crazy thought up ideas by my older siblings. Do I believe in miracles? Sure do, otherwise I'm not sure how I survived and that was just what happened inside the house. We played a lot of football in the front yard and with two older brothers and their friends, I was the runt of the group. Oh, and by the way ... we didn't believe in that two hand touch stuff. Needless to say, I was always trying to impress the the giants around me by not really caring about my body by taking on anyone to tackle, or diving for a ball. At first I wasn't the best receiver, I dropped more balls than I caught. Just getting a ball thrown to me was a rare honor. One game, I was standing in our driveway, which was also the end zone, calling for the ball. I was excited to see the ball thrown my way, but it was a bit high. I jumped up with my eyes closed and the magic moment happened ... I caught the ball. I put the death grip on that ball, holding it so tight while excitement shot through my body! The person defending me was quick to point out I was out of bounds. I pretended to be upset, but truth be told I was still flying high holding tight to the ball.

My football playing days began to dissipate as I grew older, being replaced with basketball. Perhaps this was due to my older brothers and their friends being able to date and drive. Even though I missed playing football terribly, I believe part of me was okay with not being tackled so often. Basketball was tough, but there was no tackling, which was nice. My friends and I began to spend a lot of time playing and even admiring the NBA players. Notice how I said, "admiring" even though "idolizing" was not a far behind. In fact, there was a rumor that my friend and I skipped school to go to the airport to see Michael Jordan because we found out the time the Bulls plane landed. I will not confirm nor deny ... he was one tall dude though! There is a strange thing that happens when playing basketball as a kid. Most of the time is actually playing the sport, but there is also a small amount of time when you are your buddies take turns seeing who can be the closest to touch the rim. As we got older and most of us grew taller, the incredible day happened ... I touched the rim. Not far behind that day came the moment of bliss. Not only was I able to touch the rim, I was able to hang on it with both hands. Talk about a triumphant feeling. I was ecstatic and did not want to let go. This was my moment, that I had worked on over and over. My friends were happy for me at first, yet once they realized I wasn't coming down, they started talking about how they wanted to keep trying, so I finally had to let go.

As I have fought this depression war, I have had an incredible psychologist that has assisted me with learning to cope and claw to move on. Incredible people have given me advice as well. The majority of the times I spend a lot of time pondering about what has been told to me ... some advice I look at and just smile. Lately, there has been a recurring theme that I hear. The biggest message I hear is to "Hold On" while some tell me to learn to "Let Go", and then the few that tell me to "Hold On" and "Let Go." My knee jerk reaction to the last advice is to tell the person to stand up and sit down at the same time and wish them good luck. As usual in my life, the more I have thought about it the more I realize the "Hold On, Let Go" principle is spot on, but how the heck do you do that. I need to hold on so I can let go? I need to let go so I can hold on? I need to let go, hold on, let go and then hold on some more so I can let go? Now, I know the obvious is to "Hold On" to all the good things around me. That's great ... add the dark glasses of depression and seeing those things are quite difficult at times more often than I would like to admit. Then there is the obvious point of "Let Go" of the bad things in life. Well, right now that "bad" thing to me is my mental illness and getting rid of that would be awesome ... yet right now seems impossible. I used to be a huge fan of the saying, "Only Focus on what you can control. The choice is up to us how we handle the bad things of life." What happens when that "bad thing" alters how I choose at times? I can't control when falling off the cliff of deep dark despair of depression. I can't control when anxiety takes me over like a puppet holding the strings. Yep, this is how my mind works. So how do I hold on and let go?  For me, I have learned that I hold on to love. That may come from divinity, family, friends, even people I have never met. Love that is shown is far more powerful than simply said. Letting go is more individual I believe. Right now, my "Letting Go" is a huge monster facing me every day. The odd thing is that I know what to let go of, but the how is the monster. I'm learning that what I have defined as something so awesome, like hanging on a rim, reaches an end. I'm learning that holding on to love is easy and hard. Seeing love can be difficult at times, compared to see a football coming at you, but either way when you have it, don't let go.  

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!