I suffer from a form of depression known as dysthymia. In lay man’s terms it is episodic form of depression where you never get really low to the point of not functioning, but there are times when motivation is an issue. I manage okay for the most part. I perform my duties at work and do what I need to do throughout the day, but it is sometimes hard to get the energy to do anything beyond that.

It’s usually caused by a chemical imbalance. I was diagnosed in my twenties, but it is something that has always been there. The original psychiatrist explained it by saying that there were certain times in our lives when hormones change and we are more susceptible to these imbalances. The standard treatment are anti-depressants, but as many of you probably know, there are dozens of those.

The first one was Paxil. Paxil definitely helped me get out of the fog, but I went from a fairly svelte 140 pounds to a robust 210 pounds. I’m only five foot nine, so that was definitely too much weight. As I went through the treatment I went from feeling generally depressed to feeling depressed because I was fat. I eventually found Cymbalta and managed to get both in control.

In the last 20 years I went from that 210 pounds back 140. That also came with diabetes. Diabetes is a cruel kind of disease. By itself it’s not a big deal, but it causes so many other problems. I have had problems with my eyes, feet, kidneys, digestive system, and goodness knows what else. It seems like I’m going to some doctor every week and playing whack a mole. One problem seems to get better and another problem gets worse.

The other part of diabetes is the root cause. Some people will say it is caused by a bad diet and I can’t necessarily disagree with that. I drunk cola like it was going out of style. Still, people have a predisposition to get it or not depending on genetics. So, you could spiral and vacillate between self-pity and self-loathing.

I described fighting through a fog and that is exactly what it feels like. It’s like wearing gray colored glasses. Take all the personal stuff and add to it what is going on in the world around us and it can seem impossible to make it through. There is the normal middle aged stuff of moving into a stage of life when changes happen. Retirement is coming. Kids are getting older. Parents are getting older.

These thoughts dominate my thinking. It is the way I view the world. I have to train my mind to think positively. It becomes a mantra to help me get through the day. It becomes a way to view our politics and the social/religious issues that dominate our timeline. Anger quickly moves to despair. It can be overwhelming to deal with stupidity and cruelty for their own sake. We were supposed to be better than this. We are called to be better than this. Fighting it can feel like trying to rake sand off the beach.

The long and short of it is that I can offer excuses for not writing, but they are all a cop out. The cruel irony is that the writing serves as therapy for me. I’m not on the anti-depressants anymore. Writing is a lot cheaper and comes without the side effects. Besides I’m taking enough pills to keep the pharmaceutical industry afloat. Keep repeating the same mantras. Most people are basically good. This too shall pass. Our national nightmare will end and our lives will have meaning. Otherwise, there is a pill for that too.

As I write this it should be noted that the verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse case has not been reported. By the time you read this, it likely has already come down. I’m notoriously not a gambling man, but if I were I’d lay down heavy odds that he’s walking home. I’m not a soothsayer here, after all, more than me is saying the same thing.

There have long been arguments about self-defense and it’s one of those discussions where I feel I must be taking crazy pills. At this point, I’m not arguing anymore. There really is no point in it. If someone can’t see the plain truth that is right in front of them then they likely never will. Many of these folks are people we used to count as friends. Some of them are family. It hurts to even think about what they are at this point.

Most of the commentators have been dancing around the shame. Where does it go? If you see the truth then you definitely feel it. When you see such a huge miscarriage of justice it’s hard to feel anything else. Our justice system seems capable of slowly making up for egregious errors in justice. Wrongfully convicted folks can appeal. They can challenge issues of law. They can introduce new evidence that wasn’t introduced before. There have been hundreds of folks that have had their guilty verdict set aside.

These aren’t perfect scenarios. There is no getting back the time lost. Yet, one of the miracles of our justice system is the fact that this avenue is available at all. What really isn’t available is the ability to overcome a rogue judge or an odious jury that is willing to put their thumbs on the scales of justice. Victims don’t get a second bite at that apple. They can’t wipe away an ineffective prosecution team or shoddy police investigation. To date, there is very little recourse for their families or those that care about them. They can’t cry foul when they see that the fix is in.

Shame leads to dark places. It can’t go anywhere and there is little we can do about it. It piles on itself and the weight becomes crippling. We can’t look each other in the eye because we know all too well what is going on. We can call it by name, but the unwoke mob will call it cancel culture and try to minimize the shame. They’ll trivialize it. They’ll poke fun at you for it. They’ll hang it like an albatross around your neck.

When someone like Rittenhouse walks away it eats just a little bit more out of our soul. It feeds that depression that so many of us feel. It stacks on top of the other shameful events that we can’t erase or explain away. It just stays there weighing us all down. Maybe those deniers can’t see it. Maybe they can’t hear it. Maybe they don’t know it’s there. They certainly will feel it at some point and by then it will be too late. By then the weight may crush us all.

Sorry for being a little quiet, lately, y’all. I’m trying to help Ms. JJ while she’s out but I have been in one of those short-lived (I hope) periods of emotional overwhelm. Call it what you like, depression, grief – it’s that rock on my chest that refuses to move when I try to get out of bed. I walk around with a smile on my face, doing my daily business with a smile, all the while with knees shaking and my head repeating “just go back to bed. just go lay down. Just go close your eyes.”

My photos will show me smiling and at that moment, I’m genuine! But the happiness flitters away, the smile recedes, and the boulder settles itself back on my chest.

It’s been a tough year. So many of the comforts of a passing year that give us hope for renewal were just missing for a year. For me, baseball season is and has always been the ultimate symbol of everything being right in the world. My daddy always said there are three things you can always look forward to: Death, Taxes, and Opening Day. I used to get a phone call the first day pitchers and catchers reported to spring training. “Pitchers and Catchers Report!” he’d yell. I’d make an inane comment about how fast time flies and we’d trade texts and calls for the next few months about all things baseball. This has left a huge hole in my life every baseball season and each year it becomes harder to fill. Then came the pandemic.

My heart was almost mended enough from the sign-stealing scandal to give my Astros a new shot last year, but of course, Opening Day never came. The one person I wanted to share that with, my daddy, was no longer with me. He’d have thought the people cutouts were stupid but he would have probably bought one for me.

Opening Day came and went in 2021. Things are starting to get back to normal. My husband and I are fully vaccinated and can venture, masked, out into the world. But my husband’s mama and my daddy aren’t here, and I miss them. It’s funny how grief seems to sit dormant until all of a sudden it rears its head again. Because I believe in the baseball Gods, I’ve purchased some cheap seats to visit my team this weekend. I’ll be in the nosebleeds – with the real fans – and I hope my dad will be sitting in one of the seats that have been kept open to social distance, telling me which calls were shit and which rookies to watch out for. Hopefully the Astros get the COVID outbreak under control, soon.

I’ll feed my soul with some peanuts and popcorn, a hot dog, a giant ice-cold Dr. Pepper and a big foam sombrero. Maybe next week, the sun will shine a little brighter for me.

If you’re feeling depressed and would like someone to talk to, people are waiting at (877) 870-4673. Or just get going in the comments below, we’re good people here and would love to chat. If you are having thoughts of suicide, Please call 1-800-273-8255.

Oh, and one more thing. Just since it’s a politics blog I need to keep the theme. Ted Cruz Sucks.

It’s happening right before our eyes.  When His Orangeness was elected by the slimmest of electoral margins in 2016, normal people cringed, understanding that this chapter in our history was going to be a complete disaster.  Trump has certainly met that expectation; his erratic reality television show behavior has destroyed everything from 100 year-old international alliances to entire industries.  His tariff war has cost hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions in economic value; his withdrawal from the TPP handed international trade dominance to China and Australia; his idiotic rantings on twitter have roiled the markets and destabilized politics in the US.  The entire world is either laughing at us, or worse, preparing for the lunatic in the White House to declare World War III over some fabricated crisis.

Up until now, the markets have shrugged off Trump’s insanity, primarily because they’ve enjoyed the trillion dollars he’s pumped into the economy with unneeded tax cuts causing skyrocketing deficits.  The result was overheating the economy which caused inflation to raise its ugly head, forcing the Fed to act by raising bank rates.  His shutdown of the federal government over his idiotic wall is the last nail in the coffin of the 2018 economy.  The Dow has plummeted 4,000 points from its highs; this is the worst December since the Great Depression.  The market the last 2 years has now returned only 4% per year, barely beating inflation.

Instead of trying to understand what the hell he’s doing, Trump bumbles around, attacking everything that moves; he spent Christmas Eve savaging the Fed for the inflation HE PERSONALLY CAUSED.  Even worse, the Fed is now the only agency standing in the way of this hair-weaved moron from pushing the entire country into the abyss.  He has never grasped that the POTUS is supposed to CALM the markets, not burn them down; this narcissist is playing with matches while standing knee-deep in gasoline, complaining that he doesn’t have a blow torch.  On top of that, of course, the invertebrates in Congress have fled DC to celebrate the holidays in hiding while the economy burns down around our ears and almost a million federal employees go without paychecks at Christmastime.

This is the worst disaster I’ve witnessed, including the last disaster started by GWB ten years ago.  The difference?  GWB was just a dumbass who surrounded himself with evil neocons and Darth Cheney, but at least he wasn’t nuts.  Trump, a loose cannon, is singularly the most corrupt, narcissistic, and insane POTUS in the modern era, including Nixon.  He’s run off all the adults who tried to restrain his worst instincts.  And, as Mueller gets closer, he gets more dangerous and erratic; finally, after almost 2 years of complete chaos, the markets are now destabilized and plummeting.  This one won’t end well.

Merry Christmas.