I'm Back to Normal

I'm generally a very happy person. Glass half-full is my motto at the best of times. However, there was a really dark period in my life, which was exacerbated by moving to the burbs and a bunch of issues that aren't any one's business but me. I can honestly say that I was so clueless regarding my depression that I couldn't even label it depression until my therapist forced me to name it. It took a long time to go away completely, and I didn't even realize that vestiges of it hung on for a good long time; sort of like a prolonged hangover of the psyche.

But I knew that it was finally finished and buried (one hopes forever) by the fact that I'm cooking again. Serious cooking, pouring over magazines and web sites and itching to try new things. I'm also gardening (interestingly that was the first thing to come back), and I've just ordered a slew of sewing patterns. Although I might not seem like it from this blog, I am a revoltingly domestic person and my love of all that went when I became depressed. And that's what is so awful about depression. It cuts you off from you. It's like your soul has been put in locked box and the key is nowhere to be found. You know that you used to cook, garden, and sew, but those are nothing but memories. For the life of you, you can't fathom who that woman was. When you come back from something like that, then you find yourself looking at your depressed self and saying the same thing: who was that poor woman?

Anyway, I've just purchased a slow cooker from Target now that my working ass is full time. The first recipe definitely needed some serious tweaking although the bones are there. The dog has claimed the garden from me, but we have a large yard and there will always be the debris to clean up. And the watering, since the dog ate the wonderful irrigation system my husband toiled over for months. Oh, and I think I'll make myself a cape for when I attend those crazy Harry Potter functions. I'm always decidedly under dressed.

Yes, I'm back. What a long strange trip it's been and I never, ever want to go back.