April 2023

April has been an interesting month. It certainly feels like it’s been a long month. I’m writing this on the 30th (woohoo, an on time update for once!) and it feels like Easter was so long ago even though it’s only been about 3 weeks.

For Easter we colour hard boiled eggs for a jarping comp – my daughter drew eyes on hers ~ not creepy at all….

For most, well all, of April I’ve been depressed. I started it noticing it coming on in March*, which probably means the black dog has been lurking since Jan-Feb; but I finally feel like I’m coming through it. For the first time in ages I actually felt like leaving the house. Which means I’ve turned a corner because when I’m overly anxious or depressed I really do not like being outside/leaving the house. So that’s a nice way to end the month.

Another nice thing is that I’ve started to get interested in my garden and shade houses again! I haven’t done much as yet but it makes me happy that the interest is there. Mr T helped me to clean out the shade houses (he did most of it) and now I can see what I have and get ideas of what to do. The cooler weather in the past week or so has helped with that as well. I’m also having ideas of getting my honesty stall up and running again.

And things that I used to do such as looking at how I can use up leftovers, scraping the “finished” jar of PB that the teens put on the bench to get the 2 sandwiches worth of PB and topping up the new jar, and generally paying attention to the little things; being mindful. I am starting to feel like I have the time, breathing room, and brain space for those things again.

And yes, I realise that I am in a place of privilege – I am so lucky, and grateful, to have options where I don’t have to make work (as in paid work) my priority. I know not everyone has that, which is a big shame; and I also know that some people love working and it’s a huge part of who they are; and that’s wonderful because often those people are doing work that is incredibly valuable. But for me, the non-paid work parts of my life are as much as I can cope with!

So yeah, April has been quite a month. And I’m cautiously optimistic about May…. but I’m not going to say that too loudly 😉

*I documented some of my thoughts/feelings/experiences about my depression, and state of mental health, on my personal FB page and at some point I’ll put them on here because I’d like to keep a record, and you never know, it may be useful to others.