2023-05-20
DEPRESSION HATES A MOVING TARGET
The foot falls it the gravel in a regular interval... I hear rock moving on rock as the base of my foot hits the trail tread. This is my normal 5K/10K run, the South Fork Snoqualmie, run from my place in Riverbend in to town and back. Some days it is longer, some days it is shorter.. Mertz was my inspiration a few years back to wake up pre-dawn and make this trip. She got me through 6 months of being incarcerated due to a DUI... Realisticly I had given up to the dark horse of depression, mother passed away and the loss of a lover that I still haven't reconcided with today. Yet the foot falls kept falling, that sounds with the breath... That is what kept me going...
Advance to today, 3 years later... I am in the Mountaineers, climbinmg and scrambling. There is a glory in the mountains that I cannot fully describe.. I am surrounded with people, that I feel NORMAL with... Our singular focus on finding routes up mountains and pushing ourselves... And yet, "Depression hates a moving target!"... Today I bailed on a climb of Mt Rainier (Mother Tahoma) up to Camp Muir and then practice on the Ingrams Icefall.. I just could not move... I knew I needed to camp at the trailhead the night before, I felt the depression setting in.. Iroic after spending a day teaching others to climb, but out of the blue, I could not face the world... IT has been my struggle most of my life...
In general, I live alone.. I do not want to... I have been with 4 incdredible women, and yet this has been the consistant problem... Depression, Isolation, and Immobilization.... I have worked the program, been to conselors and tried medication... I the end, it is always acceptance... Very Buddhist ultimatelty.... I am brought back by solo trips in the mountains and quiet time by rivers... This is my mantra... I will always have this struggle, i am not delusionary to think that it will go away, but as I walk this path in life, I want ti to get better. To navigate better with through this.. It is like a 4 week cycle.. And today, it comes when I was to climb Rainier... The mountain will be there another day, and my team is good... I respect each and everyone of them... But for now, I just sit back in my yard and find solace... Peace and comfort come with time...
