When a heavy cloak of depression settles down upon my shoulders, I tend to feel as if life has passed me by. I start to ask myself what the point could possibly be, and when I’m unable to answer that question I give up hope, and start resigning myself to my fate. Why even try? When I’m in that awful mind-space I genuinely believe that nothing good or new or exciting will ever happen to me again. Ever. And I’ll spend the rest of my life alone. Forever.
And then I proceed to catch up on my sleep.
What usually snaps me out of this mindset is either planning something that I can look forward to, or a heaping helping of reality. That reality usually takes on the form of an event that shows me how erroneous my thought process is. In other words, I get embarrassed out of my depression.
First of all, relatively speaking, my life is pretty darned good. It takes but a minute to read stories of how nasty, brutish and short the average human life can be. For example, how can I possibly feel sorry for myself after looking at photos of the Syrian refugee camps?
But the greatest balm is when I’m inspired by someone who hasn’t given up. In this instance it was all the more stunning because it came in the form of a friend. I love being in awe of friends.
From deep beneath my heavy cloak of gloom I happened to peek out at Facebook the other day and saw that my friend Carole, on the brink of her 73rd birthday, had posted footage of herself jumping out of an airplane. A perfectly good airplane. On purpose. Whoa.
You may not be able to control how people feel about you, but you can do unexpected and exciting things at any age. You can skydive. The sky isn’t the limit. The sky is the starting point. You can be amazing. And that sounds a lot more appealing to me than lying in bed with the sheets pulled up over my head.
Thanks, Carole.
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