Is this the nature of depression?  I am thrilled with the new President, but I am still depressed.

Yesterday was gray, even though it was a joyous day because it was our new President's first day, and I couldn't stand to listen to the news.   I hear that thankfully the President is signing executive orders to halt the tribunals at Guantanamo.  I do trust his team, that they are up with all of Bush's executive orders, and will get them reversed as soon as possible.  I still  worry that he won't stop the killing of  Yellowstone wolves that Bush signed into an order soon enough to prevent wholesale slaughter.  I can't stand it.  It hurts to see the lack of compassion toward our fellow creatures who are a vital part of the ecosystem.   I want to do something, and I feel hopeless and helpless.  I feel like I can't do enough.  I can't face it, and turn it off.  

The death of wolves and polar bears, the death of our planet, Death. When I think of death, I think of my German grandmother who when I was three hanged herself in her garage on their Southern Missouri farm, and her husband who years later asphyxiated himself in another garage on another Sunday while the family had gone to church.   She was sixty, just two years older than I will be on my next birthday.   She knew she was facing another stay in the Asylem, with the old fashioned shock treatments she had in two previous stays.  They didn't have the antidepressants that we have now, and shock therapy was something that seemed to work at least enough for her to be able to come home.  

What if that was me?  What my family would do without me?  I'm sure they would survive somehow.  But it would be a mess.  There is still to much done.  If I were gone, there would be no income to pay the mortgages.  Or money to run the farm or feed the horses.  There would be some money  IRAs, much diminished over the past year.  I have not been able to get life insurance, which is really annoying.  I wonder if my being on antidepressants is why they denied my application?  

 When you go through a death, as with my father or with my father-in-law, a lot has to be done.  Stuff has to be handled, and I am concerned that there is no one in my family who could handle it.  Hell, I can't handle it, and I taught them everything they know...well, not everything.  They probably could muddle through it, and I have some really good friends and part-time employees that would help.  It would be very hard, but they would probably come through.  They might lose the little mini-farms I've created here.  They are sort of expensive to run.  If that were to happen, two of my three daughters would be homeless.   Of course, if their dad becomes ill, then we all could be homeless, since he is the source of my income.  I asked him if his big wonderful house was paid off....no....so, he could end up homeless, too, if he weren't able to work. Just like the other forclosures all over the nation.

I think we definitely need more backup here, more depth of income.  I can always work since I have experience in lots of areas, but nothing that's a huge money earner or anything that is recession-proof.   I have done economics, bookkeeping, typing and management. For two or three years I ran the computer lab for Truman Archaeology Project, being a trained anthropologist.  I have run my own business and farm for the past eighteen years. I have taught riding and raised horses. I can clean stalls and haul hay. I was CFO in a small video company, ran a computer consulting business, and was office manager for a private employment service.  I am very familiar with the field of medicine and can talk intelligently about various vascular and interventional procedures and tests.  I have studied death and dying, and have assisted in the care of the two dying fathers.  I have raised three children, and am good with children, as they are good with children.  I like children.  They are so fresh and new to life.  Things are more complicated as they grow up.  I have studied Hinduism, and Buddhism, and am a certified yoga instructor though I'm not teaching right now.  I  practice Transendental Meditation. I have studied and become certified in Permaculture, a method of landscape/habitat design that mimics nature, and allows people to become self-sufficient using the resources at their disposal, including city spaces and fireescapes, suburban yards, or acreages.  I have excelled in school, including getting As in my year of Graduate School at the University of Missouri-Columbia.  I have applied to and been accepted to two graduate programs, one MBA, and the other a PhD program at Pacifica.  I  am considering applying to a distance MFA in creative writing, along with the thousands of others who have done that.  I have attended writers workshops in California, the Olympic Pennensula, and Guatemala.  I have been invited to another this May in Tunesia.  I have been accepted to study with a Maya shaman in Guatemala.

Today, I am trying to design my life.  And now that I list what I've done, I feel much better about that project.  I wish I could find my ten year plan at age thirty.  The only things I remember are these:

Get a PhD,  run a marathon, weigh 120 lbs., write a book, have children, make a million dollars, have a beautiful creative house.  

So, what did I do?  House, money, children, 120 (then not now), ran a 10k two years in a row.  Still on my "to do list:"  book, marathon (now walking, not running), and PhD.  But I add a lot more about friendship, spirituality and peace, being fit and healthy in body and mind, and developing a permaculture ecovillage with chickens and llamas, mushrooms and raspberries, and places for community, and finishing my Flood House.  And volunteering to help others, and helping/visiting my family whenever I can.  And traveling around the world.  And what the heck, might as well go for it.... finding true love and great sex.

I finally began listening to kirtan, the chanting and music from the Shoshoni Ashram.  It is  like meditation.  I have another wonderful saying by the Dalai Lama on the wall next to my library desk that reminds me to "Never give up."   Last night I felt like giving everything up.  Maybe I need to reduce the things I am responsible for, to simplify my life so my responsibilities don't dominate everything.  Today, I'm glad I didn't.  Just listing my life gives me hope.  I guess I will just have to keep saying I'm sorry.