Appreciate Every Sunrise
Life’s too short to be miserable
My mom and I had a falling out when I was fourteen, a rift that never truly healed, even later in life when we were both older. We reached a detente of sorts when I was in my twenties, and that’s how it stood until she died a couple of years ago.
For the entirety of my life, at least the parts that I can remember, my mom was depressed. Actually, both my parents were, but neither was diagnosed as suffering from depression because their generation believed therapy was a sign of weakness rather than healthcare. They spent a lifetime trapped in a largely unhappy existence because they were too prideful to ask for that kind of help.
My dad mostly slept away his life when he wasn’t working. He self-medicated with sleeping and pain pills that would reduce him to a drowsy stupor. I’m thankful for the many moments he was lucid. I wish I could have done something to make it better for him.
I tried to improve things for my mom, but it was like beating my head against the wall. We were opposite ends of a spectrum or magnets of differing polarity that repelled each other. She was a diehard pessimist, and I am a pragmatic optimist. I see no point in being so fatalistic. She relished it.
