This past spring/summer has been like a TV drama. There's the overall plot, the episode-by-episode plot, and the surprise season finale.
I've been fighting depression again. I suffered from it in 2006 when my grandfather died, failed all of the classes that year, and I've been fighting to recover my mental balance and my GPA ever since. But, I got better. I got married, and I spent two and a quarter years on top of the world. Then, my two best face-to-face friends left for Japan. One of them, Julia, is the main person who helped me get out of depression last time. I was locking myself in my dormroom, unable to get up for anything but going to the bathroom, and she forced me to get out at least once a week to teach Sindarin in a classroom. It changed my life. I found so much joy in it that I ended up changing my major to Teaching English as a Second Language. She saved my life. We'd spend hours talking on every subject; we'd meet every day for lunch.
Suddenly, I was alone. I don't have a good understanding of what's happening in my emotional part of my personality. I've never been very much in touch with it. I have to work hard to be tactful because I often don't realize how harsh I am. I didn't realize I was depressed until I couldn't get out of bed in the morning.
My symptoms of depression are quite boring. I'd always thought there'd be dramatic cutting or weeping to sad music, but no, my depression is boring. I just can't get the will to do things I need to do. How lame is that? I'd lay in bed, not sleeping, but not really awake, all day long. That, and I hoard things, which is just messy.
So, we've got me, all depressed and on meds. I've been getting better these past few months. I can get things done; I'm answering e-mails; I'm visiting my relatives; I'm sewing again; I'm eating again; things are lookin up. My mom came to visit; we hung out, and we went swimming in Harper Lake, where she delivered to me some news that she'd just received by phone moments before I picked her up to go swimming.
My youngest brother, Ivan, had gotten diagnosed with cancer that morning.
You read that right. Cancer.
Apparently, the surgeon who took out Ivan's wisdom teeth spotted a funny lump over one of the wisdom teeth, so he biopsied it and sent it to a lab. It came back as a small low-grade mucoepidermoid carcinoma, an oral cancer. Apparently it's very slow moving for cancer, and Ivan won't have to do any chemotherapy or radiation. The most dangerous part of the whole thing is that the surgeon might have to cut out part of a nerve that controls half of his tongue.
We don't know what caused it, other than random chance. The most hardcore thing Ivan chews is cinnamon flavored bubblegum.
Ivan is chipper and optimistic about the whole thing. He's romantically thinking that if he and his current girlfriend stay together through this, they might make it long enough to get married some day. The biggest downer for him is that he can't bring his girlfriend to Seattle, where the surgery is taking place.
So, we came home to Belgrade, Montana to give Ivan hugs and hear what the surgeon recommended. We had dinner with Trevor's folks, which was cheery and lighthearted, until his 18 year old sister dropped a bomb on us. She announced that she was pregnant with a guy she'd dated for two months. She's scared and confused. I don't know what she's going to do. I don't know what to feel about it.
Now, we're just waiting for an evil twin sporting a goatee to show up; or someone to disappear and return with amnesia.
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contemplative
sad
busy
sore
anxious