I haven’t been feeling like myself for awhile, maybe it started in September maybe earlier. It’s hard to say, but by January I was in a pretty dark place.

It was so dark, I didn’t know down from up, or forwards from backwards. This darkness had three parts, mind racking insomnia (going back at least two years), persistent and craze inducing anxiety, and a deep seeded ambivalence. AWESOME.

Each of these things have come and gone, off and on again, in my life. But something ab0ut this lasy January made my life completely unlivable. It just had built up and I couldn’t find a way forward, a way out. The ambivalence was like a door slamming shut in front of my face and it was paralyzing.

So I went to some friends and they pulled it all out of me, examined the mess for themselves and gave me a map, a way out. And that’s what I needed. I couldn’t do this by myself, I needed someone to hold my hand and tell me what to do.

I needed to see a doctor, I needed to get some professional help. My reply, “I thoughts that’s what you people were?”

Sometimes, at least for me, when you have done all you can, when you have gone to inner healing classes for three years, when you have talked it out as much as you know how, when you have prayed and cried, and straightened yourself up and walked forward, when you have bought as many cats as you (or the city you live in, or the husband you live with) can justify, when you have married the love of your life, when you live in the house of your dreams, and you drive a nice little car, and go to your wonderfully fulfilling job, sometimes even with all of that, you still don’t want to get out of bed. You still don’t want to really live.

And if that feeling lasts for long enough, you can’t just keep going, you can’t just keep trying the same things, you need to get some help.

And so I made an appointment. I sat on a vinyl covered table. I talked to a doctor I had only met one other time, and I told him everything. I left that office and I thought I can do this, I’m not crazy. I will make it through. I walked out of the office and to wal-mart’s pharmacy and I stood in line while every old lady brought their groceries to pay for at that counter. And then the pharmacist says to me, thank you for waiting. I say, no problem, not a big deal. She says, you sure are nice for a sick person. I say, I’m not really sick.

But looking back now, she was right.

And a month of tiny blue pills later, I am different. I can breathe. I sleep well every night. EVERY NIGHT. I am not “”just about to boil over” all the time. I feel more even, more on point. I’m excited to get out of bed. It’s a freaking MIRACLE.

I’m not living in a fog anymore. My life’s not perfect, but I’m not shying away from it, I’m not pulling the covers back over my head. I’m rising to meet the challenges some days, other days I’m just moving forward however I can manage.

So today, I’m thanking God for that doctor and for the pharmacist, and for that medical researcher, and that evil pharmaceutical company and the treacherous over priced insurance company. I’m thanking God for those little blue pills.