All Dressed Up And Nowhere To Go.

My daughter asked me,"Why are you dressed up?  Aren't you just staying home today?"  I hadn't thought I had gone too over the top, I am just wearing jeans but I have accessorised and I am wearing make up AND I have blow dried my hair.  We live on a farm and often no other human being is sighted for the entire day. Still, I do this nearly every day even if it's just me and the dog.  It's just who I am and I am my mother's daughter.  She was the only patient in intensive care wearing lipstick after a near death brush with an aneurysm some years ago.

Recently I read some wise words: Get up.  Dress up.  Show up.  Never give up. Honestly, I think these simple steps can really help to keep an even keel in the turbulent waters of modern life.  It is apparently very important to maintain regular routines and sleep patterns when battling depression. Not that I am, but the tendency to rise late and lounge around in your unwashed trackie is sometimes difficult to control and exacerbates any feelings of gloom and apathy I occasionally experience. I really do I feel infinitely better about things if I am presentable.  On a couple of notable occasions I have been sprung in a by an unwary visitor and I am still suffering troubling flashbacks.

Although I have less reason to show up for things these days now my kids are living away and I no longer have to meet the bus, be involved in school organizations or take them to after school activities it is always uplifting to catch up with friends.

Everything*

You came one day and
as usual in such matters
significance filled everything—
your eyes, the things you
knew, the way you turned,
leaned, stood, or sat,
this way or that: when
you left, the area around here rose
a tilted tide, and everything that
offers desolation drained away.

—A. R. Ammons

  I read out this poem to a friend the other day because this is how she, and my other good friends make me feel after we have spoken.  I appreciate the different perspective and the whole "a problem shared is a problem halved" lessening of burdens that friendship and family can offer.  I think my friend was flattered and not too startled that I started spouting what may be a love poem at her!

As for the never give up part of it.  I am not sure I am a "Boy Stood on the Burning Deck" sort of person but I have got much to be thankful for.