Permanatly Exhausted Pigeon

Depression has been hard on me this past twelve months.

Warning: ugly truths ahead.

2017 started off badly.  Calling the suicide hotline in February and Grandma dying in March bad. 
The spring and summer made me think things were looking up.  Got called into the Young Women's Presidency, my sister came to live with me, and I crossed an item off my bucket list when I went tanking in the Niobrara River.  But the sunny days were short lived.

By September, I was struggling at home, at church, and at work.  You know, all three areas of my life.  I thought that attending the Olympic Curling Trials in Omaha would breathe new life into me, but if it did, it wasn't immediate.  I came back from that week-ish vacations with fewer spoons than when I started.  Not good.  Fast forward through some documented conversations at work, more financial fights with the student loan lenders, and this winter was almost as bad as the last one. (No need for the hotline, but I didn't go grocery shopping during February because I hardly ate anything for a few weeks.)  I still look both ways when driving across the railroad tracks, though, so it's not all bad.

To be honest, now that it's March, I'm at about 75% good with my church life and work is getting better now that my managers have seen firsthand some of the bullying I was being subjected to.  Home life is still underwater (metaphorically), but I think those may be receding. 

Life hasn't been all bad, though.
I've discovered some great comedians on YouTube (Mary Mack is particularly hilarious, and the Dry Bar Comedy Club in Provo is on my bucket list) and there have been a few major tender mercies.  Not only was there Olympic curling, but the men's team won gold and I was able to watch a few of the games live.  I also happened upon a Canadian sitcom called Corner Gas that speaks to me after the first season.  I applied for a job in my field, which gave me some fresh air even though I didn't even get an interview.  My van still runs, most of the time.  (There's some transmission problems when it's cold, but with literally only a handful of dollars in my checking account right now, that's not an issue I can afford to address at this time.)

In a lot of ways, I feel like I'm back where I was twelve years ago, my freshman year of college.  I was considering transferring at the end of the year, like a few of my friends.  But if I was going to do that, it would have to be for something better.  I was looking for a small school (less than 5k) in a city with an LDS chapel and a curling rink.  Lately, I've been contemplating a need for change and have been looking for the same things.  A city under 100k with a curling rink and an LDS chapel.  The center of that Venn Diagram is pretty much Duluth and Wausau.  There are a few appealing jobs and the housing market is comparable to what I'm used to, but none of the glitter outshines the ugliness of moving.  I'll keep my eyes peeled for a certain je ne sais quoi.

Anyway, I'm going to try to get back into taking my writing seriously.  Hopefully I don't have to quit my weekend job to do it, although I might.  Camp NaNo, here I come!