• John moves on

    An open letter to my coworkers at the Largo CSE office:

    It’s Sunday morning, December 29th, and I’m sitting in my new home in Orlando. We’re mid-move and I’ll be driving back to Dunedin this afternoon for one more week of work in Largo, but I’m already feeling nostalgic.

    I drove past a vacant building this morning. It used to house a non-profit job training program, and my first job out of college. It was my only job since college, besides the one I’ve done for CSE the last eighteen years. It fit my mood. Part of me feels vacant. Part of me has already moved on… imagining a life where I don’t live or work in Pinellas County, and it leaves a void – you.

    While there are reasons to look forward to the move, I will miss you. I may move away from home and make new friends, but you are my CSE family. I came to you as a twenty-three year old kid. You celebrated with me when my wife and I bought our first house and had our first (and second) child. You counseled and supported me through injury and illness, hospitalizations and surgeries. You helped me believe in myself. You helped me reach every success or award. These things don’t merely make you important to me, they make you irreplaceable.

    With some exceptions, I don’t think I’m known as a talker. (If only you knew ;-) Because of this, the timing of our move (during the holiday season), and my transfer going through much faster than I thought, I haven’t had the chance to speak to nearly enough of you in person. I’d much rather say these things to many of you face to face, and maybe we’ll get that chance in the next week. But if we don’t, please know this: despite fatigue and discomfort from illness and injury during recent years, which dampened my enthusiasm, the time I’ve spent with you and the things we’ve accomplished together are precious to me.

    My only regret is I didn’t work with more of you – that I didn’t know some of you as more than another friendly face passing in the halls. But in either case, thank you all so much – with all my heart. You mean more to me than you may ever know. I hope I’ve given each of you a fraction in return for what you gave me.

    I leave you all with these final thoughts. I wish all of you the best. May your endeavors bring you everywhere in life you choose to go, and may you have a good time getting there.

    John

  • I try

    Hi, my name is John and I haven’t posted anything of substance in a year or more.

    I have a good thing not going here, so why start now? This is a couch and you are my therapist – so be warned.

    After a few false starts, we’re really moving. Cheryl starts a new job in Orlando on Friday, we’re moving much of our furniture after Christmas (to the guest wing of my sister and brother-in-law’s house), and the kids start at their new schools when they reopen after the holiday break. As of a week ago, I have no idea what I’m doing – other than staying behind until I can find a job in Orlando. I have some ideas about what I may be doing (hopefully a transferring within my department), but much feels uncertain and depression doesn’t help. I feel deep depression waiting around the corner like a would-be mugger, waiting to beat the shit out of me and steal everything I have. This may sound odd at first, but it feels like an ego trip gone VERY wrong. Mixed with uncertainty, it feels like the mental health equivalent of booze and narcotics.

    Putting all of that aside for a moment, let me tell you I am extremely proud of Cheryl and I know I’m very lucky. Not only is she the love of my life, my partner in life, and my very best friend, but she put our family on her back and carried us through a tough seven years while dealing with a few of her own problems…

    … and this is where I lose folks who’ve never dealt with severe depression: I’m trying to be supportive.

    Trying? you may ask. You either ARE supportive, or you are NOT. There is no TRY.

    Thank you, Yoda.

    If you’ve been depressed, read anything about depression, or have a shred of common sense, you know (on some level) depression is an internal struggle. There’s a reason I referred to it as an ego trip of sorts. Depression turns your thoughts inward and self-destructive. At its worst, it can take self-absorption to dangerous lows. Self pity, helplessness, self loathing, despair… I could go on and on – but I won’t – for your sake.

    My aim is not to make YOU depressed. I want you to understand. Short of that (which isn’t realistic anyway), I’d like you to know where I am when I say I’m trying. Every day takes some effort. Sometimes it feels harder to get out of bed when I’m depressed than when chemotherapy was trying to kill cancer before it killed me. I constantly fight my mind’s (mostly) unconscious push to think the worst, overlook the positive, and focus on the negative. I struggle against a desire to isolate myself all day at work by seeking people out. I make my own signs of self worth by putting smiles on other people’s faces (or trying anyway). Then I come home and try to do at least as much for the ones who mean the most to me: my family. This still takes a toll – I’m often physically and emotionally exhausted. But it’s better than the alternative: the isolated, lonely, and hopeless downward spiral of profound depression.

    So I’m trying to be supportive. I’m trying to see opportunity in change. I love Cheryl and I know I’m lucky we found each other, but I wish I didn’t have to try to be the kind of person I wish I was – that I know she deserves.

    However, just wishing something were true rarely makes it so.

    So I try.

  • All the best

    I’ve come out of the bunker (of my mind’s own making) to wish you all a happy Thanksgiving. I hope you all have many reasons to be thankful and they require little effort to recall. I hope you feel lucky for what you have rather than wistful for what you don’t. I hope the love of family and friends are close and plenty.

    Be well, my friends, and have a happy Thanksgiving!