Hang On! Rain is on the way

 Oh my gosh, I'm in such a funk. I really do believe that as I go through more and more boxes of these photos, I have to watch my mental state. On one hand, I'm so grateful to have them and be able to sort and share with the people they should go to. On the other hand. There is always that damn other hand. It's depressing. Absolutely a downer to look at all the wonderful adventures that life held with my parents and sisters in them and have to face the reality that my parents and Kelly are gone. Don't even start me on my aunts, uncles and cousins. I don't handle death well, in case you haven't noticed. 

The truth is, I have struggled with depression just about my entire life. My parents had me in counseling for a year in my teen years because of it. Don't think it helped but that's another story. Then, in my early thirties, I had a bit of a breakdown and went back into counseling for another year. This time, I started medication hoping to find some relief and I did, for awhile. Over the years, I have had my way ups and my way downs but I've carried on. Bob has been an amazing support and I honestly don't think I would have made it through without him. 

Right about now, if my sister Kelly was reading this, my phone would be ringing. Kel would be yelling at me to not put all my business out there for the world to read. What she actually meant by that was don't tell the truth. Keep the perfect Casas family facade going at all costs. But that was never me. We were never perfect. We were just real like every other family on the planet. There were absolutely wonderful things about us that I wouldn't give up for the world. Then there were things that I wish never were. Isn't that just life? Why should we hide from that? Why do we want people to think we're something that we're not? I've never understood that. My honest evaluations of life drove my mother and Kelly bananas. That was never my intent. I just had to be honest in how I saw things even if no one else understood. 

Talk about your reality and your mental well-being or lack thereof. Be honest with people. If they don't want to know the truth they shouldn't ask how you are. Tell them anyway and keep telling them until you find someone who cares and will listen. It's important. You are important.

Anyway, I'm tired of being separated from people. Absolutely over it. I haven't seen my sisters in too long and I'm starting to get edgy about it. I need to see them both sooner than later. The last four months with this broken ankle have left me extremely isolated and introspective. These are two very bad things for someone like me that needs people, adventure and laughter. I've also spent way too much time on Facebook and have watched some of y'all behaving very badly. This has left me even angrier about life in general because I now have to face the fact that some of my friends are as screwed up as I am. Maybe we all need medication and counseling at this point. Just a thought. I know I could use a night out of drinking, singing and dancing, at the least. None of which I do well, by the way. 

Tonight, I ran across the picture below. This is our farm in Oklahoma. It was on fifteen acres with a two acre pond. We loved this home. It was constantly full of people and fun and laughter. There were always parties being planned and it felt exactly like the way my parents raised me. In a house full of life. We lived there a long time and we thought we would always live there, honestly. Then Bob lost his job, my father died, my sister died, a record drought hit and went on forever and I was working seventy plus hours a week just to survive. Life got very complicated. The final blow was the dead fish. 

The year before the drought hit, we had stocked our pond with hundreds of fish from a hatchery. It was so exciting to see them grow and walk down to feed them every evening. We loved our pond and all the fish. Then the record drought hit and went on and on and on. Every day the pond grew smaller and smaller until we could see the fish dying. It was horrendous. We tried saving as many as we could by taking them to neighboring ponds and also putting them in our stock tanks but it was all happening so fast with so many fish that it was simply overwhelming. I can't tell you how many evenings Bob and I would walk the property crying together. It was really awful.

Anyway, when I found the picture of the farm during the drought, it really hit me hard tonight. It's a perfect picture of how my depression feels when it hits me. It can come on suddenly and unexpected and can last way too long. It sucks all the color out of life and leaves me feeling dry and empty. It's overwhelming at times and no matter how much I scramble to try to save the bits of life I can see, it's a losing battle at times. 

I just keep reminding myself, droughts eventually end.