Deuce's Wild

So, I have been feeling kind of overwhelmed by a lot recently, and I have been letting my depression get the better of me more than I’d like to admit. A few years ago, I found myself in a really dark place, and my depression had total control of my mind, and that is something I told myself I would never let happen again, but recently I have been feeling the stress of life and have had a few things hit me pretty hard.

A few weeks ago, I was helping a friend of mine get his cat, who is like a child to him, ready for a pretty simple knee surgery that should have been no big deal. He had to put it off for a few months because he didn’t have the money for it, and every time that cat limped by, I could tell his heart was sinking, watching helplessly for the time being. I spent some time with the little guy, and tried to help make things easier for him during this time, and even built a kind of enclosure for him where he could have everything he needed, and plenty of space to play, without being able to jump around and hurt himself further. And up to this point, I would have said I hated cats! I got attached to this one though over this time, and was excited to see him enjoy his new play house for the next few weeks as he recovered, but he never came out of surgery that day, and it was a total shock to everyone.

Here I was, so sure that everything was going to be fine, and then in an instant, it wasn’t. Sure everybody has their issues, but at this point, I was already feeling pretty stressed, and this came as a hard blow. Even worse, was watching one of my best friends, totally devastated by the events, knowing that there honestly wasn’t anything to be done about it.

Exactly one week later, I get a call from my mom, telling me that my sister had just lost her baby, and it had to be delivered, stillborn. This was, and still is a big deal for my family, and knowing that once again, there is nothing I can do about it, sucks. Still feeling a little raw from the previous week, I felt myself kind of go into shock. My emotions were all over the place, and my depression got the best of me yet again.

Having recently lost my job, facing a legal headache, and now dealing with back-to-back death, all on top of the stuff that stresses me out on a daily basis anyway, was almost too much to bear. I could feel myself retreating, and to be honest, I haven’t even come out of the hole yet, but the thought of getting back to that dark place is still enough to scare the shit out of me!

I find myself not wanting to get out of bed in the morning, and looking at myself negatively, but with so much loss all around me, I am forced to shake it off and do better. This is more easily said than done, but I have too much at stake, and for the sake of my future and my sanity, I have to pick myself up and tell the asshole in my head to shut the hell up!

There is so much to live for, and so much that I need to do! The world is a mess, but that phrase is stuck in my head. “Do better.” I am thinking about that now, not only in terms of my own fucked-up head, but in general. Not only do I need to do better, and focus on what I am capable of, and not what I feel I’ve failed at, but I also need to live my these words.

Every single day, I need to do it better than the one that came before. If I feel that today was a waste, I need to ask myself what I can do better tomorrow. I need to strive to be better, and work toward that goal, on a realistic, achievable level, even for someone like me who struggles with depression.

I need to be a better person. I need to feel better about myself. I need to do more to better my surroundings. No one is going to do these things but me, and no one else can make me better.

I feel that I have already come far on this journey, but I am far from the end of it. Today, I have already set new goals for myself, attainable goals. I refuse to spend one more day not being the person I know I should be. I hope to prove to myself that I am as strong as I need to be, and that I will overcome the struggles that I face, not only because I don’t have a choice, but because I know that I can face them, and that I will give them my all, and come out better for the experience.

We all face darkness in our own way, and in my life, I’ve faced it in a few different forms over the years, but I’m still here. I may feel beaten down and tired at times, but that is no excuse. To take life one day at a time, without being consumed by the negativity that relentlessly rears its ugly head, and stand up to it, proving that you’re better than that is all you can do.

By taking each day, and striving to make it better than the last, you will open up a whole new world of possibilities for yourself, and with every day being better than the last, even if you have a bad day every so often, it may be one step back, but think of all of the good days you’ve had before it, and the good days you’ll have after it. Think about what made that day bad, and what you can do, personally, to make the next one better.

Negativity only breeds more negativity, and the world is a hard enough place as it is. If each of us strived to do better, every day, it might make a bigger difference than we’d ever imagine. This is something new for me as well, and after being pretty hard on myself recently, I know that tomorrow, I will “do better.”

Who knows, maybe I’ll start a new blog about it or something, but for now, I’m going to take things one day at a time, and once I do better tomorrow, I can do even better the day after, and so on.

It may not work for you, hell, for all I know, it may not even work for me, but I know that it’s up to me to make a change, and I am going to make one for the better.