The Ultimate Opponent

It's been a while since I've posted, I've been up against the toughest opponent I've come across in a while. I've battled him before, hope not to again for sometime soon, but I made it through. The opponent; "depression", it takes you down from the inside when everything on the outside looks and appears to be intact. I could try to describe the last several weeks, but words provide a scant injustice to the emotional and physical roller coaster ride, but the one constant I kept front and foremost was "this experience will someday help another person". I also wondered about posting this, "the stigma", even though we've come a long way still exists, but life is not always easy. It starts slow; a restless sleep, I'm not as hungry as I usually am, little things start to be ignored or add up, but everyone goes through things like this, right? People start to notice you're not yourself, you're a bit out of your element, your nature is somewhat quieter,but everyone can have these times right(?), so you tell everyone you're fine and you and you even start to believe it yourself.Then one day like a swimmer caught in an undertow, you realize you are too far out and getting back is going to take all you've got. Those moments of imploding darkness drain your strength, confidence, dreams, goals and yet during this time I'm still able to dig in my heels and say, "where am I with this, what do I need to do to overcome this"? I'm really good at deflecting, putting on a happy face, with the " I'm fine" exponent, all the while having to talk myself through from moment to moment; "just get to work", "just make it through the warmup", "just try 10 pushups",just do what you need to do. There were times it was nonetheless frustrating, as I was also battling a drug resistant respiratory infection and you wonder how much more can you deal with. There was a couple of times I tried yelling at God ( as when things get rough I figure he's in the equation somewhere) but I highly doubt he's up there going, "Hey Moses, come here quick, look it's Robert,watch this!" After all that, like any other illness, it eventually passes by doing all the nessesary steps you need to take, but with me there is a residual denial of "it really wasn't that bad", yet it was. So getting back on track, the pushups and situps are coming on stronger with a "hey, I remember these" flow, writing is up on deck, my volunteer work which went a bit shakey has regained its strength( as I said earlier, this will someday help another person)and to perhaps pick up on all that is good around me, when I came home from class last Wednesday, I stuck my face in a freshly bloomed peony, inhaled its newness and thought "I've got it so good", onward and upward, Robert.