I’ve been having a hard time this week. Between the rampant depression bandwagon and my home state ticking away the last seconds on its time bomb countdown, I’ve been distracted. I’ve had a hard time writing. I’ve had a harder time sleeping. Its’ been crap.
When I started this blog a few years ago, under the name Screaming Voice of Reason, it was because I wanted an outlet for the bubbling, putrid ball of hate and rage that was eating away at my soul. In the intervening years, I’ve learned to accept things about myself and the world without filtering through my giant rage-on, but I still get cynical and angry.
But not pessimistic.
Part of the reason I get so fed up with the stupid shit that happens in the world is I believe we can, and should, be better. I don’t buy that this is what we are meant to be. I hate it. I hate the manipulation. I hate the lies. I hate the false reports. I hate the ignorant opinion machine. It’s why I can’t spend more than a few minutes a day on Facebook. Facebook does nothing but increase the spiritual poison that we put into our bodies.
If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you know that I suffer pretty heavily from depression. In fact, if you look at the first six months of last year, every single day was a screaming attempt to pull myself out of the endless bog of the emo-spiral. I hit rock bottom pretty hard.
I moved to Montana a little over a year ago and completely changed my life. I fled Missouri, the state I love, the home I love, and got a new start. I needed it. I needed to tear up my roots and rebuild myself. In the last year, I’ve spent more days happy than depressed. I’ve lost 95 pounds. I’ve written a few books, and have more on the way. It’s been an amazing year for me.
This blog, which used to be something I did every single day, has fallen to the wayside for awhile. I have to admit, I got caught up in the “writer writing” minutia. I still don’t like to steal from my fiction time, but I think I need to do it more often.
This week has been a reminder that depression is a sneaky bitch. I’ve been going on high for so long, I had forgotten what a crash was really like. So many thing hit me at the same time, and I buckled.
I can’t keep letting myself do that. I have to talk about it.
I just don’t know how to go about doing that anymore. I haven’t felt the need in so long.
So, I’ve decided to go back to my roots.
For most of you, we met through #Reverb10, which was an awesome series of blog posts for personal bloggers way back in December of 2010. It helped me sort through some really, truly dark shit in my life and introduced me to some wonderful, amazing people.
Reverb kinda disappeared after that, but we’ve kept the community going in various ways over the years. One of those ways is an August Prompt list called August Moon, created and maintained by the wonderful Kat McNally. It just so happens to have started recently.
I need to sort some things out in my head. I need to focus inward for a couple of weeks. So I’m going to participate again this year.
I hope you won’t mind the navel gazing too much.
Thanks,
M.A. Brotherton