Rebuild from Depression Blog

If you have a chance to see this every day, do it.

Note to self: start enjoying the sunset more often.

Many months have passed since my last down cycle but I am keenly aware of how important it is for me to live my life differently so that those cycles either never come again or so that, if they do, they will not be nearly as grim.

One of the tools that I use on potentially very bad days is to challenge myself to see something very interesting. I had a potentially stressful meeting in late August. I tried not to be too anxious about it (but I was). Everyone in the house was well aware that of all of the days this year, that day held the greatest potential for me to go bananas. My mom offered to accompany me to town and run errands while I went through the wringer. Knowing myself the risk in the day, I took her up on her offer.

But before we left home that morning I made an announcement:

"We need to take the camera because today we will take a picture of something spectacular."

No, it's not a private island in the Pacific or an exclusive mountain retreat. It's just home. Fall has become winter somehow as I sat inside and missed most of the fall season color. We do get color in our part of California but you have to be outside to see it.

I have learned a lot since early August when I began to spend far more time than I should working in front of a computer.

Here are some of the bigger lessons:

1) There is a big difference between "a little bit" and "none."

Here I am talking about exercise unfortunately. Through most of the summer and a good part of the year prior, I would put my amount of exercise in the category of "a little bit." I knew I should do better. It would help with my efficiency and muscle-building. (I am not supposed to write that other word.) What I did not fully appreciate is that I could do worse.

Who knew that walking across the property to check a garden hose counts as movement. It does.

I suppose you cannot fully appreciate that fact until you hit that "none" category. Older folks and bedridden folks tell me about this but I figured I was pretty close to the "none" category as it was. I was not. And even in this period of "none" I did manage to work outside clearing the hillside a number of times, but that's a whole other story (as you will see).

In any case, my food intake was healthy and reasonable and then, sometime in month three, I gained about three tons in two days. I expect to solve this particular problem with an elliptical trainer promised by my in-laws as a Christmas gift for my husband and I and a weight set.

2) Don't mess with poison oak.

At my six-month check up yesterday and cleaning, I asked the dental hygienist “how old” my teeth are. “You know that book ‘Real Age’ that adjusts your calendar age for bad habits like smoking and good habits like exercise to come up with your ‘Real Age’? What’s the ‘Real Age’ of my teeth?”

First of all, no patient has apparently asked the question before and she explained how no algorithm exists to answer. However, she did say that my teeth were pretty much on target for hitting their first 39th birthday just last week.

She said, “You have no major signs of inflammation and certainly none that couldn’t be solved with more regular flossing.”

“Inflammation? You can see it in my teeth?”