The End of the Beginning

[katster]

I'm still awake. I spent most of it filling out paperwork and worrying about my life goals.

It's funny -- something kshandra posted has gotten me thinking about new year's resolutions and things I want to do, and I realize that 2006 is the year that I want to change things. I have to change things, or the rut is just going to stay here. After all, I've achieved one of my life goals last year, and now I have to make it stick.

What was that life goal? Move out of Redding, of course.

This year, it's a bigger bunch of things. Exercise more (and hopefully that'll lead into lose weight, which is always at the back of my mind), get a job, get out of my parents house, buy a car, spend more time working on my writing, finally beat the damned depression, take my meds like I ought to (bad kat), and stuff like that. (A good chunk of them is listed here.) If I can nail down a good chunk of them, I'm not going to recognize the person that I am in December, and that would be nice.

But in the meantime, it's scary. And I'm going to need all the encouragement I can get. Of course, this is hard to ask for, but I'm asking now. Please, please, *please* help me do this. I need to not trip and fall all over this year. I'm risking too much to do that and with such lofty goals, the depression beast would love to sink his claws into me and not let go. And this is what scares me here on the edge of jumping off the cliff and doing it.

But you know, fuck that. If I'm going to defy gravity, then I'm going to have to throw myself off that cliff and trust that there'll be a soft landing. So here goes nothing.

Even though I'm scared to death.

Now I can see you wavering
As you try to decide
You’ve got a war in your head
And it’s tearing you up inside
You’re trying to make sense
Of something that you just can’t see
Trying to make sense now
And you know you once held the key
But that was the river
And this is the sea!

This is the sea, indeed.

Here we go.

Comments

[leto-bucher.livejournal.com]

Go for it, amie :)

[tsjafo.livejournal.com]

Prayers and good thoughts on the way.

[bfly.livejournal.com]

You can do this!

[duskcat.livejournal.com]

I'll be rooting for you all the way. =]

[archangelbeth]

Anything you need in particular, or will the general cheering work? (And from what I've been reading, being in reasonable fitness is good, and weight is... weight. Don't find out the hard way that your body is genetically programmed to respond to crash dieting with "OMG FAMINE!" and hanging onto every scrap the way that my grandfather lived through the depression as a pack rat...)

Here, have general cheering, at a minimum.

[murphymom.livejournal.com]

Know that I am here for you in whatever way I can help.

I'm going to sound like a dittohead...

[lirazel.livejournal.com]

...but ditto!

In particular, any time you need a place to launch an attack on the coastline of a Canadian province or two...

[salinn.livejournal.com]

Yay Kat! *pom poms*

My dad's favorite business quote: "If you're not growing, you're dying."

As morbid as that is in life, today is always the first day of a new change. You have way too many people who love and care about you to have too hard of a landing, you know?

[inflection.livejournal.com]

I'll help all I can with the weight. It can be done! And remember, slow and steady wins the race; I upped my exercising just a little, I set a pretty wide limit on calories, and it works without setting off any alarm bells in the system. I've been at it for two years and I'm not done yet, but this Christmas I gave away all my size 50 and 52 pants and bought a suite of size 42 and 40.

For you personally, mind you, it's probably a good idea to ask a doctor about the combination of previous depression and low calorie intake. I know on days when I'm under calories I often feel listless and blue. It may be a good idea to focus on exercise, then: walking's probably the best. You get to go outside and depend on the weath reliably, you live in California after all, ya lucky stiff... ;^)

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Well... insofar as one of your goals is beating depression, let me warn you about this. You don't beat depression when you're never depressed, ever again. If you've been fighting depression for years, you've beaten depression when you are generally not-depressed, and when you show significant symptoms, you can

1) recognize them,
2) work with them (i.e.: keep moving in your day to day life), and
3) fight back against the depression mentally/emotionally

At this stage, you might still be on anti-depressants; you might not be. But if you can't fight off incipient depression within a week, you'll recognize it's time to talk to your doctor; maybe start them again, or increase your dosage, or whatever.

Now, you might be one of the lucky ones. You might fight off the beast, and never get depressed again. It's possible. Don't think you'll definittely be fighting it forever.

I'm not saying you'll always struggle. I'm saying you might always have to be wary, knowing that if you let your guard down for a week, you could end up depressed if that lack of wariness coincides with your body and mind hitting the depression-equivalent of a roomful of banana peels.

(And note that I said "a week". You don't have to keep your guard up constantly.)

[spitgirl.livejournal.com]

You know I'll be here for you. :) Way to go, Kat! You've already proven to yourself that you can do what you set out to accomplish (NaNoWriMo), and I know that the other goals will fall into line with your can-do attitude.