I am listening to Jack’s Mannequin and noticing that I have a mild headache, which is rare for me. I ordered three books and cannot wait to get them so I can read for hours on end with the summer days that stretch out ahead of me. I seem to be singularly focused on books about bipolar and depression as if absorbing them will keep from flinging me into the whirlwind of mania or the depths of depression.

I had to mentally push my body to take a shower today. I often hear how hard it is for people in the midst of depression to take a shower, and I feel a slight kinship. Natasha Tracy describes the water as actually feeling painful. Some days I spring out of bed and am ready to embrace all that I will create on that day, even if it is just a clean dish. Other days I can just read, sleep, write, and not be able to get out the door.

Today I am in the in between. A push to shower, and feeling like a home body, and I would love to get out of grocery shopping for another day. Please don’t make me go. But if we need hamburger buns for dinner tonight, I’ll go. A body at rest stays at rest, a body in motion…has forced itself to move because it was feeling stuck between feeling nothing and feeling low.

Last night I couldn’t cry at a very moving scene from the show “Parenthood” that my husband and I are watching. I do not cry much anymore, and I think that is the medicine. It keeps me so even, but at a slight price. I do not feel deeply when I want to. But is that a small price to pay for being even? Today I am going to go with a resounding “Yes!” But ask me when I am the only one in the room with dry eyes, and you might get a different answer.

Confession time: One of the books I ordered was William Styron’s “Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness”. I hesitated because it sounds like it gets pretty dark. Why do I have a desire to go there? Why do I listen to Staind’s “Something to Remind You,” a dark song, about suicide…why do I seek out the darkness? I have always liked dark themes in art and music, and I just have to be careful not to go too dark too intensely. I don’t want to be depressed, I like being happy. My guess is there is something in the stillness of sadness that makes me feel more complete and heard as a human being.