When I was twenty four

[Alaska1958]

In many ways I've had a pretty good life so far and may yet see good things in the future. It's been full of the melancholy of depression, but aside from that....

I would like to tell you about the best year I've had. That is to say that one period in my life that I wasn't dogged by depression. At 24 I was trying to lose weight. I had been 325 pounds for about 5 years. As luck would have it, I ruptured my appendix and when I got home I was 299 for the first time since I was 18. I decided I'd try to curb my appetite and get some regular exercise. I had always liked to walk and ride my bike and so I did. Things were going well and I decided to go back to school. I majored in accounting and for the first time in my life I got straight A's. It was the first time I had ever really applied myself in school and it felt great. My parents were proud of me, I was proud of myself. It felt great and I went back for a second semester and again got great grades and felt wonderful. A year after rupturing my appendix my weight was down to 225 and I was biking 30 and 40 miles a day.

Then it was summer again and I started having trouble. I was still exercising and going to school, but the depression was back and it was getting hard to stay focused. I saw a psychologist and got an antidepressant, but it didn't help much. Even 30 years ago I knew I needed to keep up those activities that had given me such a boost to my morale. But week after week the depression stayed with me. During the fall semester the weeks dragged by and I got more and more apathetic about everything. My weight moved steadily upward and my grades fell. By Christmas I had dropped out of school and gained much of the hundred pounds back.

It was a great year and it makes me think of what my life might have been like if I hadn't the way I am. Or what it might have been like if I were strong enough to fight through the apathy.

[Frame]

I hear you Alaska. What is it; lack of strength you say? I could say lack of determination or lack of discipline; I've used them all on myself. Still there just words; and notice they all have lack in front of them.

When we say we lack something that generally connotes that we need it. I want to find another word, something very different; because this is different. I'm taking the leap to say whatever at the root is 'different' about you is 'different' about me and I don't want to think of it terms of something lacking. Perhaps it's like a huge boulder in our way or a deep gorge with no bridge. It certainly has altered our paths.

But the boulder and the stream at the bottom of the gorge are resources we can learn about and use. Maybe (once again) I'm searching for meaning where there is none. I have certainly given up. I have given up many times before. And so, in the midst of this latest failure perhaps my thinking is clouded. But I can't stop thinking that our differences are not lacks but tools to be used. Now, how does this damn tool work.

[hollyann]

(((((((Alaska1958))))))))) (((((((((Frame)))))))))