Another New Year’s Day has come and gone and with it a slew of posts of people talking about their resolutions. I tried to avoid that whole “new year, new goals for the new year” approach in my youthful days. I was a young rebel who wanted to zag when everyone else was zigging, I would say to myself “Ha ha, look at all those people making goals! Constant improvement is the name of the game! What makes today so different from yesterday?” I may have said this out loud at some point to the family cat after one too many glasses of champagne sometime after midnight. She knew what I meant.

The thing is that the changing of the calendar is so darn convenient for making a fresh start on some aspect of your life. The warm afterglow of the holidays is past, the bills and the scale may be telling you things you’d rather not hear, and I would bet money that you still have your Christmas tree up. It’s not going to take itself down. You are receptive to making changes to yourself, hopefully for the better. So I joined the crowd a few years back and here I am writing out my look at what went well last year and my resolutions for the year ahead. However here you are reading this as a fellow member of the crowd so wipe that smug look of your face.

I feel like I didn’t accomplish much in 2018, but that’s the depression putting its two cents in. I did get more done than it feels like when I step back and look, and one of those accomplishments was a big one for me.

· My weight: I dropped below 200 pounds for the first time since 2006, around this time four years ago I was up at 270. Given my family health history as well as the all-around quality of life benefits (energy, comfortable clothes, not getting too hot in the summer, fewer aches and pains) this was big for me.

· Writing more: I have stepped up my writing output (especially since the fall last year) in several places. I have been submitting more entries right here on Medium, I am working on posting more on my food blog and I even have started to work on my fiction writing again.

· Organizing and decluttering: I have been making a concerted effort to become more of a minimalist and 2018 was my first full year of working on it. I reckon I tossed or gave away 25% of my clothes (including a number of things that had become too big for me), two shelves of books and about a third of the magazines that had piled up.

What’s on tap for 2019?

· Maintain my weight loss, anything below 200 keeps my doctor happy, my stretch goal is to hit 186. That number means something to me as it would drop me below the overweight category for my BMI. People rag on the BMI these days, but for a rough guide for people to follow it works well.

· Write even more.

· Keep organizing and decluttering. I hope to have cut my wardrobe in half from where it started at the beginning of 2018.

· Distraction management: Focus more, be more mindful, and reduce social media as well as smartphone timewasting in general. Reddit, Facebook and Clash Royale are the biggest culprits.

· Eat with more awareness: Not a weight thing but more of an “eat less meat eat more veggies” thing Also I want to eat in a more environmentally sustainable way. Cutting my meat consumption by 50% from last year and eating 50% less pre-processed foods seem achievable.

· Be more sociable.

· “Hope is Not a Strategy”: There are too many things in my life right now where I am not giving proper oversight and not exercising needed control. I have been hoping things will work out and have no plan in place, for either success or handling complications. That has to change, it’s hard to follow a plan if you don’t have one and entropy is a bitch. In spite of your best efforts, chaos and death always win in the end. Holding them off for as long as possible is the best you can do, and I am not doing enough yet.

They say concrete goals are better to pursue than vague goals, but I don’t know what metric I can apply to the last one.

Let’s see what unfolds for 2019.

I am writing more these days and I am thrilled that I had it in me to crank my output up a notch or two. The other evening I even was writing up a draft for a short fiction story with a notepad and pen. This is not normal and I think I like it.

I have a plethora of books knocking around my place about writing and creativity and prompts, sometime I actually open one. I was reading one where the author was talking about their morning routine and how certain actions mentally prime herself for writing. One action was brewing a fresh pot of coffee, the aroma and mild caffeine rush once that first mug is consumed helped feed her inspiration and effort.

Something in the description ignited a spark in my mind, I was hoping for that elusive inspiration with minimal effort expended that makes writing so much easier. My mind had other ideas and told me: “You need a coffee percolator, an electric one.” Thanks mind.

The issue is thus: I have the following items in my place: Four drip coffee makers (a normal 12 cup one, another 12 cup one that has a built in grinder, a four cup one at work, and another four cup one on my bedside table). I have a K-cup machine at home (the nice one from a few years back with the large reservoir). I have a French press, there is also an ice coffee pitcher. I also make sure I always have jars of instant coffee as well (both regular and decaffeinated) because sometimes you just can’t wait for a machine. I have lots of ways to make coffee that most coffee aficionados consider superior to coffee from a percolator.

Second complicating issue: Most of my thoughts and ideas breeze through my brain like a tumbleweed borne on a stiff western wind, some get stuck. Oddly, the thoughts that eventually pass through get mulled over more thoroughly than those that get stuck. An example: Every so often, I get that desire to drop everything and become a farmer or a plumber, some sort of manual work where I am producing something tangible or fixing broken things rather than broken ideas. These types of thoughts get plenty of brain time devoted to them, but rarely have follow through. The thoughts that get stuck don’t get much brain time, but they clang their way into my mind with the certainty of a sunrise and get acted on quickly. If they don’t get acted on soon, they dominate and it’s just a matter of time.

Now that I am writing it all out, I think I may have a problem here.

Fortunately, they are almost always low cost low impact ideas, but they barge in and overstay their welcome like a door to door vacuum cleaner salesman.

Over the last few years I have done or purchased the following thanks to these inspired ideas: Bought multiple books to learn how to code, bought multiple books on gardening and homesteading (even though I live in a high rise that doesn’t have a balcony even), a bread maker, a domain name for the fake religion I was trying to create for a book idea that never went anywhere, a banjo, and now an electric percolator.

I, for one, welcome my new percolator overlord and am eagerly anticipating what I shall brew in it. I look forwards to nestling in between the K-cup machine and my drip coffee machine on my kitchen shelf.

When I was young, I had a class in elementary school where we had to pick one story out of the newspaper and summarize it in a few sentences. Killing several birds with a stone here, reading comprehension, summarizing information, and being informed of current events. It boggles the mind to think that the daily newspaper was not only a primary source of news and information for people, but that it was often the only source for some types of news. Sure there was the TV and radio, but you could only cram so much information into an hour of news, usually a half hour local newscast followed by a half hour national news broadcast. If you were an old person not watching the Disney Sunday Movie, you were likely watching 60 Minutes for its in depth stories. Unless you had cable to get CNN, which wasn’t really a thing before 1980 or so (cable or CNN) that was it. Not many sources, but all reliable and widely consumed. When 7:00 in the evening rolled around if you read your paper and watched the evening news, you could say that you were all caught up on the days news. You were as informed as could be and you reached the end.

That news reading assignment left some good habits in place for me, I would usually read the local paper as well as the Washington Post my parents subscribed to in the afternoon after getting home from school. I was a true renaissance man, the Washington Post in my lap and MTV blaring on the tube. As my life got busier, I would end up with a stack of papers dating back several days and would often catch up on the weekend. I could catch up and read it all with some effort.

I was raised in a family of readers so my parents had a lot of books around the house that they bought over the years as well as a nice set of bookshelves where the “fancy” books would reside, hardback versions of the classics from some book of the month club. We also hit the local library regularly, it was a habit to hit the library on Saturday mornings every four weeks. We were likely the only family that would take home our haul in a laundry basket to carry them all. You can picture the basket, a tasteful shade of avocado green that was the right shape and size to try to ride down a set of carpeted stairs in.

You will never finish the books in the library, there is only so much time to read, but there were lots of things you would not be likely to read anyway. You felt like you were able to check out most of the books you wanted to read.

As you get older, the scale of the world comes into focus and just how many things to read there are out there. Newspapers from other cities, all the books for sale at the mall, all the other books in the series or by an author you like that are listed in the front of the book but you never can find in the stores or library. All these things also in all the different languages.

Then the Internet came along. I don’t recall exactly when I became aware of it, but sometime in my sophomore or junior year in college one of the computer labs was connected up and there it was. It sounds funny now, but I remember cutting an article out of the newspaper that had a list of useful websites and bringing it to school so that I could check them out. Also funny to look back on: I was able to take a three credit course in January 1997 during the short winter session called “Introduction to the Internet”.

These websites are like constantly updating newspapers and magazines. You could look at a site in the morning, and by the afternoon there would be a few new stories, amazing! The rest is known to us all, but the Internet meant an almost infinite supply of things to read (and eventually books to buy as well).

I will never get caught up on my reading and you will never catch up on your reading either. When I was young and came to this conclusion it bothered me, some days pissing me off, other days just making me sad. The realization that there would be so many books I would never get a chance to read (and new ones coming out daily) was an early form of fear of missing out (FOMO). Perhaps it was a bother to me because at one point I could say I was all caught up and my youthful ignorance of the scope of the world as it really was led me to believe that you could be aware of it all. My FOMO was once once limited to the printed word, but there are countless sites full of info and opinions that I will never come across even if I actively search for them. It bothers me that I will likely never read the book that would be the most enjoyable of all the books for me out there, too may books to go through. The reviews of books that others have enjoyed can help you find books you will enjoy, but will it be the best one for you? Maybe, but its really an unanswerable question.

I’m 42 now and as much as it grinds my gears to admit, I’m likely into the second half of my life (none of the men in my close family made it past 82 and my dad only hit 67. A major project of mine over this year has been to get caught up on all my books and magazines, the ones I currently have. The ones I enjoy or find most useful get kept, the rest get given away. I’m also trying to break myself of the habit of saving something that I think I will enjoy reading for later, delayed gratification can be beneficial, but if you never let yourself get to the good stuff then it was all for naught.

I can’t recall where I came across the idea, but an awesome suggestion for reading the most enjoyable book was to write it yourself. Be the creator of the story that you most want to read. It doesn’t matter even if its only for an audience of one person, so long as that one person is you. But if you enjoy writing it, there will be people out there who will also enjoy reading the fruits of your labors. Thats now one of my goals in the midterm is to get that story written, perhaps by the time I turn 45.

It would me wonderful to just keep on reading forever, but something inside me wants to pass the gift forwards to someone else. The joy of writing something that somebody else calls the most enjoyable thing the have read would be more fulfilling than any joy I would get out of the best reading I could come across for me.

Why bother with creating a schedule if you can’t follow it?

I took some time this weekend to write out what my ideal workday schedule would be, from the minute I should get up to the minute the lights go out for sleep. It’s an achievable schedule, giving myself an opportunity for eight hours sleep, setting aside time for relaxing and hobbies as well as plenty of time to eat dinner (and make it too!).

Unsurprisingly, I am zero for two so far this week, yesterday was a wasted day, today was better, I teleworked half a day and have the motivation to write this. Perhaps tomorrow is the day I can make it out of bed at 6:45 to get into work on time?

I go to bed every night before a work day with the assumption that tomorrow will be a normal day. Too often the next day dawns poorly for me, what was once simple and instinctual is now a daily battle. It’s not like I haven’t fixed other issues in my life since I’ve been battling this most recent bout of depression (is five years still a “bout” or is it simply my life now?). I’ve lost 70 pounds and am at a much healthier weight. I have been decluttering and catching up on years of magazines. I just can’t string together a series of good (frankly normal is the real goal) days.

Why bother with creating a schedule if you can’t follow it? There is some piece of me that believes I have it in me to make it so, but a plan with no follow through feels worse than having no plan at all.

I found a quote on my phone in my notes from earlier this year, I have no clue where it came from, and I have a suspicion I may have come up with it on my own since it is completely what I need to do but also seems horribly incorrect at the same time.

6/17/2018: You don’t need to do the same thing today just because you did it yesterday. The only thing stopping you from change is you.

Also a note on my phone:

5/21/2018: Creeping Doom

Note to self to put on phone: 11/19/2018 creeping doom yesterday, 11/20/2018 creeping doom today, 11/21/2018 creeping doom tomorrow, probably.

Perhaps if I schedule creeping doom for tomorrow, I will fail to make it happen like any of my other plans.

I finished a 10 day cruise a few days ago and discovered that I gained 15 pounds. Relaxing and tour excursions are busy enough that you want to take a vacation after your vacation.

1. Mild problem 1: you have to lose the same 15 pounds again and only then will you be back on track to resume your persistent work.
2. You thought up an assortment of ideas of things to do (writing, programming, drawing, stamp collecting and carving out set free time as well. Great ideas! Now start doing something with them that’s more that simple preparation to start something.
3. Apparently one of my medications has been recalled due to unintended trace quantities in the pills of some cancer causing chemical. Take them back with no guarantee you’ll have a replacement, or keep popping these cancer pills.
4. The dawning realization that the bug you found on the stovetop may be a roach 🦐(not a roach)
5. My car is starting to pile up recalls. One addresses the not easily overlooked problem that your steering wheel may come off while driving, the other is for a shifting issue, you think you shifted to park, but the car lies to you and tells you that you are in park, when you are really in neutral.
6. Stop this pondering and product research for banjos. You aren’t interested in that style of music, you would be a complete beginner and even a cheap banjo costs $150. That could be better spent on most anything.

DO NOT BUY A BANJO!

Looking back, its easier to pinpoint when my depression had returned, but it was probably hard at work behind the scenes for a few months before then. It was almost exactly five years ago that I can recall the first off-kilter train of thought. Even before then I was slipping in other areas, I was putting on weight, not sleeping as much and going to bed later and later. The clock would read 1:00 AM more work nights than not before it was lights out, and I would need to be in to work by 8:00. I don’t know how I was pulling it off at the time and looking back it seem even more unsustainable.

I had just hit my seventh anniversary at my job and had earned my first chance to travel off site to Florida for training, this was a big deal since we never get opportunities to travel for work. The problem was, I was feeling dissatisfied with my job, direction-less in both work and personal life and was seriously looking into a lateral move with my company or for other opportunities in my field. But when I would pause and think hard about it, there was no one thing I could pinpoint as amiss other than a vague but strong feeling of dissatisfaction with work and life. It wasn’t making sense at the time as work was going great, the pay was good and I had been slowly but surely saving up to buy a place. I knew something, somewhere was wrong, but had no clue what it was.

The only thing that stands out as memorable over the next year or so was my food blog. I started it in April that year and was cranking out a post a week on average. It had turned into a fun hobby that I was hoping to monetize a little, but was still just fun to simply write. For as recent as 2013–2014 was, I don’t get how little I remember from that stretch.

Life sputtered on completely unremarkable and slowly less enjoyably till July 2014 when a close family member passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack. I believe that I was going to realize that my depression had come back at some point (I had been battling it when I was in high school and was on medication from 1992–1998 or so (this was known as The Great Depression until I had to fight the battle again when my mental Maginot Line got overrun)) but the sudden loss tipped me over the edge much sooner.

That October I started therapy and was on anti depressants again by January 2015. My health wasn’t a priority for years as I was a young, invincible male and you know how we can be. I was almost 39 though and my psychiatrist wanted me to get a physical, and given that the family member who passed away was from the side of the family who didn’t have heart issues, I was no longer feeling young or invincible.

Smart choice, turned out my blood pressure was 200 over something (never did find out what the diastolic was, they were likely too shocked by the 200 to tell me). I was given something in the office right then and would have earned myself a trip to the emergency room but for feeling just fine. Also turns out that I was around 90 pounds overweight, my blood work from that day showed a cholesterol of 270 and my A1C was 6.0 so I was also pre-diabetic.

I went from zero medications the year before to four, overnight and am now on six presently. For shits and giggles (as well as that sweet oxygen at night) I was put on a CPAP for sleep apnea that summer. The final insult was my depression slowly getting worse all that year as well. It seemed like I was doing worse at the end of the year than I was at the beginning.

2016 was worse in some ways, but also better in others, but that will be for part two. It is a work night, I need to get to sleep at a reasonable time and my motivation to polish up this writing any more has run away like a cat jumping out of a basket.

I can’t even be depressed right.

Or, to approach it from a glass half full perspective, I am functionally depressed.

I am thankful that my depression is not so severe that I can’t leave home, stuck in bed all the time or have the debilitating physical symptoms that some depressed people have.

I am not thankful that my depression has forced me down to a temporary three day a week work schedule because I have been incapable of being able to show up all five workdays for nearly a year now.

Fortunately my workplace has been understanding and accommodating with my situation, but I am concerned that if I can’t even make this reduced schedule work out that they will decide that I am not worth having around at all.

Now the logic behind the reduced work schedule is to only go in to work on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays so that I can show up and kick butt on the days I do go in to work, but have the safety net of a day off after every workday so that I can have that crappy day and get it out of my system before the next work day. If this schedule goes well, I will add a fourth workday at the beginning of August and will hopefully resume a full time work schedule by September.

So what is functional depression? Per Michele L. Brennan Psy.D “Functionally depressed people are depressed, but they are able to function in daily life and can meet the minimum expectations. However, they are sad, they do not have dreams, they do not set goals, they often have low energy levels, and find that maintaining their social circles is more of a chore than a pleasure. They put on a good show in front of others, but can’t get home fast enough to be alone and let their guard down.”

Sounds a lot like me, but my minimal expectations these days are not as ambitious as they used to be. What used to require minimal effort to get through the day or the workweek, now requires extraordinary effort that I just can’t repeat day after day. It frustrates me because if I can meet expectations some of the time why can’t I meet expectations the rest of the time?

There are times when I feel like I am just one good night’s sleep away from kicking this thing to the curb and having a great rest of my life starting the next day. Inevitably the next day arrives and that optimist from the day before had been replaced by the version of myself that is not capable of budging from underneath the covers till 1:30 that afternoon. Today is now ruined and I am already in a bad place for the next day since how will I get to sleep at a reasonable time tonight if I slept in till 1:30 in the afternoon?

Functional depression is a difficult place to reside, I feel good enough that I keep thinking recovery is right around the corner and that tomorrow will always be a better day, but bad enough that tomorrow never is and that it is my fault why I can never make it so.