New Ideas

My depression is waning again. Waning depression is always welcome in my life. The week didn't start that way, however. I went to Art Awakenings on Monday and was told that I was being a bad example by being depressed while I was there. That hurt my feelings. Then I went in on Tuesday and when I said I didn't feel like working on artwork the supervisor said, "Why do you come here if you're just depressed and don't want to make artwork? The county is paying $60/hr for you to be here." This is the "therapeutic" environment I spend my time in. Tuesday night, as I was mulling over my day, I decided to write an email to the supervisor. I told her it seemed that she didn't want me in the studio when I'm depressed, so I won't be going back unless I start feeling better. She called me Wednesday morning. I ignored her call. She emailed me, saying that she was only trying to encourage me to feel better and she was sorry I misunderstood her. Thursday I called her back. I listened to her say the same thing she told me over email and I pretended to believe her. It's just not worth the fight to me.

Wednesday and Thursday were spent at home. I went out for a few minutes, but mostly stayed home. When I woke up on Wednesday morning, my mood had already improved dramatically--before my day even started. Thursday and today were the same. I thought about how I have been waking up every morning and dreading going to the studio. I didn't realize just how depressed that place makes me until I took these past three days off. To see my mood improve so much overnight was an eye-opener. I told them I'd be back next week, but I really need to re-think how much longer I want to stay there.

Today I had a lunch meeting with some staff from my former foster care group home. I was quite nervous to go, even though I contacted them. I worried that they would see what a mess my life is. The first thing one of the staff said to me when I walked in the restaurant was, "You're so old! How old are you now?" It was funny. It has been 10 years since I lived there. Luckily they didn't ask much about what's going on in my life. They asked if anything new is happening and I told them that I go to Art Awakenings and that I have my own apartment. And that was pretty much the extent of the talk about my life. I brought some of my artwork to show them and they loved it. It really wasn't anything like I thought it would be.

The other night an idea popped into my head, for some reason. I thought maybe I should go back to school. But not just "go back to school"...go back to school to do something. I spent so much time in community college taking all kinds of random classes and still never decided what I wanted to do. I'm close to getting an Associate's degree, but I have no major, so what's the point? Well, I don't know where the idea came from, but I thought I might want to try being a pharmacy technician. So sometime soon I'm going to look into Pima Medical Institute. Might as well try it out, right? It's not like I have anything else worthwhile going on in my life right now...

My other new idea has to do with my cats. My little guy likes to play. And he likes to play with my 15-year-old cat. She doesn't like that so much. That made me think I may need to get another cat, a younger cat to play with him. Lately my cats (especially my little guy) have been making me so happy. They're snuggly and they make me laugh. Why not welcome another little guy into my home? It'll be more work, I know. But I think it could be a good thing. I just have to find the right one. Tomorrow I plan on going to the humane society to look at the cats. I looked at two other rescue group websites and Craigslist and there are just SO MANY cats out there that need homes. I swear I've seen 500 cats and all I can have is one. I hope I find the right one.