Into the Light

If you guessed #3 yesterday, you win. It is easy to get depressed when you don’t know what you’re doing with your life.

So after moping a lot, finding a ton of faults in Tim, noticing every time I wasn’t included in a social event, and sagging deeper and deeper, I decided I was clinically depressed. I went to a therapist, Linda.

She had me artistically illustrate what gave me pleasure.

Drawing this gave me no pleasure. Only DVDs gave me pleasure. Lots of DVDs. A constant supply of DVDs from the library.

Let me tell you about Golden Moments. Golden Moments are when the universe lets you know that you are in the right place at the right time and all is good with you and the world. I can still close my eyes and picture the time I looked out my doorway and my friends were playing pick-up football on the green and one shouted, “Hey, B-squared, come out and play!” The sun was shining. All was good with the world.

Golden Moments happen when I’m in my living room, and my eyes survey the whole scene of what makes our home, and all is right with the world.

Intellectually, I could say, “There is always a period of restlessness and turmoil until it reaches critical mass and a creative period surfaces. Just wait for it.” Instead, I huddled with that restlessness and turmoil in my living room and couldn’t move with the paralysis of my unknown future. No Golden Moments there.

And Linda used that word, that elusive but oh-so-enthralling word:

Yes, that’s right! That’s it! That’s what I want. How could I bring joy back into my life? Not with me sitting here whining.

That’s when Linda told me about “If nothing changes, nothing changes.” (See this blog post.) In college, friends would call that a P.G.I.O – Penetrating Glimpse into the Obvious – but I took it to heart. I also visited my sister and we took a road trip to Burlington, Vermont. Burlington appears on every list of “good places to retire” so if you’re thinking relocation might solve your problems, it was a reconnaissance trip, too.

Burlington failed, but the trip succeeded. By crossing relocation-to-Burlington off my list, I had taken action. (Yes, it worked that way.)

Then I started this blog, happily sitting in my nice new room. Writing but using my hands to paint. And one day I sat in the living room, surveyed the scene, and felt comfort wash over me. And I thought maybe this is my Third Third. Maybe this is not a detour on where I’m supposed to be; maybe it is where I’m supposed to be, detour or not.

I have spent a lifetime whirling through the turbulence of my emotions, the bedlam of choices to be made, the ups and downs of events and tides. Arrhythmia was the rhythm of my life. I’ve collided with life.

This new thing, is this the wisdom of the Third Third?

Gasp.