Down by the river

I have done the dishes -- twice. I've swept the house, folded the laundry, cleaned the cat box, called two friends, listened to a lot of NPR, and made banana bread. Even with all that (productive) procrastination, something inside of me is so afraid of being alone with my own thoughts that I made myself come down by the river to write, where I don't have internet, and even then I've brought a pack of my roommate's clove cigarettes -- and I "don't smoke".

Who is this person who's so uncertain, so wary of a lack of structure, of her own internal world? Where did she come from? I didn't grow up with her. She's been around for a couple of years, I think, lurking in the corners, but it's only more recently that I've noticed her at every turn.

It's when I'm indoors that she sneaks up on me most, catches me off guard and whirls me around. That's probably part of why this winter was so hard -- why living in Alaska again after college was so hard -- because inside I feel stuck and trapped (no matter how homey it is). It calms me down deep to be outside, as long as I'm not shivering.

Maybe if I combine cigarettes with a more rigorous exercise routine, they'll even each other out? This clove is awfully relaxing. I've been trying to step up my exercise, again much easier now that it's a reasonable temperature for human life outside. I've slowly added running to my karate and dance routine, and today I went for a seven mile bike ride -- poking around some neighborhoods near my house, which I just haven't explored yet since I moved in in the fall. I'm terrifically unmotivated and excellent at procrastinating (see above), but I feel so good when my heart is pounding and my ears start to hurt because of the cold air against my hot eardrums. The more I do it, the more I can remember that feeling and the easier it is to motivate next time.

I know what I need to do -- some of it, at least -- it's putting it into practice that's difficult. And that's the thing about depression, isn't it? Wherever it comes from, whatever form it takes at any given time, it's there, making everything just a little bit harder.

When I was biking today, the wind was strong in my face for the first half of the ride. It was chilly against my bare shins and pushed at my eyelids. I pedaled hard into it, willing my body to be stronger, waiting for that moment when I would turn the loop and head home with it at my back. I made that turn, and for a second everything was still and the air hovered around me -- and then it was back in my face as I picked up speed, no longer the external wind blowing against me but the air resistance I created with my own movement. It struck me how all those things that slow us down, that push against us -- they're a combination of what comes at us and what we create, but they never completely go away. I want to learn how to make peace with the wind in my face, to keep going forward into it without it overwhelming me -- but god, it's hard sometimes.