I hate feeling off.
I woke up fine. I got in a couple of decent writing sessions. Then I made the mistake of stepping outside. Immediately, my mood sank. I wanted a good cry. For nothing.
I did not cry.
I am better able at keeping myself together now, even when I can’t shake the off-ness.
It’s not just me. I sensed the sun was off, too. Something about the hue of light hitting the sidewalk wasn’t right, a little orange filtered in. I glanced up and the sun looked normal. It was the clouds surrounding it that had an unnatural grayness. Forest fire season, I told myself. There must be one with some bad air filtering this way. Early stages of any impact on the city. I hate when it gets worse, when the sun is reduced to an eerie red ball all day, when I breathe in smoky air.
Stay away. Please.
On my way back from my road trip, I caught the smoky haze first in Redding, California, then in Bend, Oregon. Two different fires, the smokiness felt with every inhale in Redding but a distinct haze affecting skies in Bend, too.
Stop following me.
I don’t think it’s forest fire fatigue that’s hitting me. I’m supposed to have accepted this new normal which has annually affected Vancouver’s summer skies since at least 2015. I haven’t. I’m bloody tired of the public and the politicians doubling down to fight any life changes and extra costs that may help the planet. If we treated this like a war, we’d all pitch in, we’d accept sacrifices. We’d see necessary changes to the economy. Instead, people deny the obvious. They put heads in the sand. Politicians fail to lead. Laws and regulations don’t change or are stricken by new governments, voted in to restore what was, planet be damned.
That could impact my mood. That could explain this off-ness. But I’m certain that’s not it. I’ve had the environment and people’s recalcitrance on my mind every day for years now. We need more Gretas. I need to be more like her.
It’s more likely my mood suddenly dropped due to a personal haze, that which follows a travel adventure. I’d been gone four weeks, most of it on the Oregon and California coasts. Breezes and sunshine—the normal kind—every day. My mood usually dips after trips. But I still think that won’t hit until tomorrow when it’s the weekend and I don’t have as strict a writing schedule to occupy me. I really won’t have much of anything to occupy me. Even in regular times, I prefer my weekday work mode to the relative emptiness of Saturdays and Sundays. My travel dip awaits.
And so there it is. I’ve done my due diligence in scanning for causes of depression. It’s not linked to anything at all. So often, that is the case. I step out of my condo, my little protective bubble, and I realize I’m part of—or perhaps not part of—something bigger. I’m here, taken aback by a mood that can’t be explained away. Without a specific cause, it’s difficult to turn it around. I know not to fight it. Depression is a master at its own doubling down. I have to walk with it and through it. I will feel it until I don’t.
I understand this is why some people may choose some sort of upper—alcohol, drugs, anonymous sex—as a temporary escape. The option of a quick, if temporary, escape may entice. I’m just not wired that way. A good thing in the long run though harder in the short-term.
I’m down but I won’t go fetal in my bed. I’m not even rushing back to my bubble. (It’s already burst.) I sip on my oat milk latte in a café. I write this out, my formal acknowledgement. Yes, depression. I see you, I feel you.
For now, I am disconnected from everything around me. I am not liking this damn shift one bit. This is the hand I’ve been dealt for today, maybe longer. There is no other deck. I play it.
Play. Funny word. Sometimes no fun at all.
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