Will things every slow down? Does life ever become easier from year to year? The answer, I suspect, is no.
Life may not be simple, but it is good. I have a great home life, and like my job very much. All of the bases are covered and I am heads and tails ahead of where my life was ten years ago at this time -- in a marriage that was three-quarters of the way through its lifespan. (I had married in September of 1999, and the woman that I married in what I today refer to as being "the ill-fated event" left unexpectedly in mid-February of 2000).
They say that what doesn't kill you will only make you stronger. At the time ten years ago, I remember slipping into a deep depression - something that felt like being submerged under water. For the first time in my life I felt numb - devoid of all emotions or ties with the world. I would sit on the couch and just stare straight ahead, or I would go to the beach by myself just to walk many miles up it, over trees and rocks, and sometimes straight up cliffs, and embrace the solitude. As I have told people all these years later, you know you are in a state of depression when you shop for groceries a day at a time - or more likely, one meal at a time.
If I did have any feelings at all it was mistrust - not just in other people, but in myself for having made such a bad decision in marrying this person - who would leave four and a half months later. This period of solitude eventually morphed into a period of introspection - a long look back over my life and ultimately the decision to change things that had not worked and to start anew at building a relationship - but this time, not with another person, but with myself. I figured it this way - that the only person that I could really trust was me. I began putting myself at the top of the list, instead of toward the middle or at the bottom, where I usually felt that I belonged.
Ten years later, life has been amazing. I have become a successful freelance writer, have eked out a career in journalism, and have met and married my favorite ex-girlfriend from high school. In June, we will have been married for five years. I feel strongly that I wouldn't have been ready for her had I not taken the time to reflect and to develop myself more strongly as a person through the hard times.
Once you have experienced actual clinical depression, I'm not certain that it is something that ever goes entirely away. But life does get better, and when those bad feelings surface, it is far easier to overcome them - this time not by isolating and feeding into it, but by engaging in life. The walks on the beach are less frequent, and spending time at home and with my wife and our feline family makes things better.
For 2010, and the decade ahead, I plan to capitalize on all that I have learned over the past ten years, and to make life even better.
But wait: Is it possible for life to even get any better?
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