Today I was joking around with one of the dads at the school bus stop.
I saw him coming down the road and as soon as he was within earshot I said, “How you doing? New year, new you?”.
He’s chatted with me enough times at this point to immediately know I’m completely full of shit, so he took the opportunity to tell me just how horrendous his night of sleep was with his toddler who woke up at 1:30 a.m. only to bring every toy she owns into their bed and fall asleep peacefully right at 5:30 a.m. The new year doesn’t automatically bring on change, nor should it.
I don’t believe in using January as a jumping off point for self-improvement. I’m of the mind that it should be a marathon, not a sprint that ends in dry heaving or throwing up mixed up with a good dose of disappointment in the beginning of February, if you can even make it that long.
Don’t get me wrong, I do believe in goals. I have many of my own and they’re all centered on one idea: how to lift the fog of depression.
I’ve shared with those close to me that it’s not the sadness or tiredness of depression that’s most challenging, it’s actually the depression fog. To me, it feels like I wake up and go to bed surrounded by a cloud. It’s not a light and fluffy one, it is a dark storm cloud. In fact, it feels as if I’m sitting right in the middle and it won’t allow me to fully feel like me. I know my authentic self is somewhere inside me, but I can’t truly access her when I’m depressed. I often believe my fog must be so obvious to others that I become embarrassed to hang out with people. I wonder if they look at me and can immediately see that I’m not OK.
But, I’m coming into an awareness that the fog is only visible to me, not others. I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse. What I do know is that even in this state, the woman I’m meant to be is calling to me from the future and giving me well-placed clues and hints for how to find to her. Because I’m slowing down for the first time ever, I’m finally in a unique and privileged position to notice the breadcrumbs. If I let my mind get quiet enough, they’re everywhere. I’m able to access the clues from all of my senses.
I see them in the twinkles of Rafe and Alba’s eyes in moments of belly laughter, I feel it after an icy January plunge into the Atlantic, I hear it on walks when I notice the sound of my favorite bird, the Black capped chickadee, I taste it when I’m enjoying a meal with friends and family, and it’s the smell in the air of the changing seasons because it reminds me I’m changing too.
There’s a lot to be said about doing nothing, slowing down, and pausing. I think it has the power to transform lives when people can consistently tune in to themselves with the goal to get to know themselves deeply. Once you’re listening, you may find you had the answers all along, but were simply too busy and suckered into the thrill of “New year, new you” to realize.