Onyx

Today’s depression seems different. I asked myself early this morning why. I couldn’t figure it out right away.

Is it financial stress? It’s true I never seem to improve my lot. I scrimp, go without, “make do,” but it never seems to get better.

No, it was not my financial woes.

Was it that I felt cheated - sort of - in a para-medical service (which isn’t important enough to explain)?  No, it wasn’t that, though I ruminate about it way too much.

Today would have been his birthday and the day we got married.

No, I‘m not “in love” but I’m amazed at how much I think about him. Miss him, even.

When he died, a few years ago, I was stunned at the unexpected timing but more stunned at how much I thought about him and how big a hole his death left in my life.

He was always there even after our divorce. He always supported his children, both financially and emotionally. Well, truthfully, he didn’t always support their choices but he was always there for them. His manner of caring was usually to direct them. His choices, though not unwise, were not their choices.

Still he was there. They could count on him.

So could I.

Was I depressed other years but unaware of why? I don’t know but today seems different.

That long-ago birthday was also the day we married. Is that why I’m depressed? It was a day of hope, of looking to the future. In recent years, there has been no hope and no future to which I can look forward.

No hope, no one and nothing on which I can depend. Family, yes, I can count on *some* of them in *some* ways, but not like him. If it didn’t seem disrespectful, I would call him “old faithful” or “good old shoe.”

That could be it.  It could be.

But today’s depression is different; all-encompassing and very heavy.

Sometimes there is no neat and tidy way to wrap something up, to complete it, call it finished –not this blog and certainly not my feelings. Life just isn’t like that.

The end.