My Lucky Day

OH MICHIGAN, MY MICHIGAN

Pouring rain and thunder.

Bright sunshine

Pouring rain

Bright sunshine

Pouring rain and thunder

Cold front

59 degrees at 10:00 tonight

Probably snow tonight, LOL

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I got a notice from my electric company that if I enrolled in the Senior Citizen program, I might get my bill lowered.  I checked my bill--it said Senior Program on the top of the bill.  I called anyway and I was told, "Senior program and senior citizen program are two different things."  No doubt another way to confuse us old people?

So--he checked for me and under the program, my budget payment will drop $16.00!!!!!  $42.00 a month on my budget payment program!!!!!

<Thank you God, thank you God, is what I yelled toward the ceiling>

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Then, I went shopping at Meijer.  For over a year, I have been looking for a new billfold--mine is 20 years old and falling apart!  My billfold is the kind you could just carry alone--money, checkbook, cards--all of it in one place.  Every time I see them, the nice ones are so expensive.  Real leather, long lasting, but over my budget.  

Today, for some unknown reason, instead of walking straight back to the store, I walked horizontally and then turned and went down an inside aisle.  There was a whole rack of billfolds, glasses cases, etc.  I stopped to take a look and spotted a black Buxton--just like I wanted.  Original price: $25.00, marked down to $12.50, marked down to $6.00!!!  Well, don't you know, that pretty thang went right into my cart!!!

Got to the cat food aisle to find the litter I use was $1.00 off.  Got me a jug and 10 can's of wet food for $4.00.  Chips were 2 for $5.00, ice cream topping was $1.00 off and---I found a sweet red cherry topping.  Usually I use Maraschino cherries or Strawberry topping, but I have always liked the sweet cherry kind they use at the Dairy Queen.

When I checked out, I had $23.00 in coupon savings.  AND--for the first time in my life, I took my penny jug along, dumped them in the Coin Star thingie and got $15.02, cash money back.

I go in this Friday to sign the bankruptcy papers!

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I suppose we are all saddened by Robin Williams' death.  Today I watched the police/coroner report in horrified details.    I have a couple of his movies on DVD, as I have always liked him.  I thought perhaps I'd go on amazon.com to get a couple more.  All his movies are "temporarily out of stock."  You know what that means?  Someone is buying them up so they can in turn, sell them on Amazon Marketplace at a much higher rate.  Yesterday, his DVD's were going for $5-6.  By weeks end, they probably will be going for $10-12 or more.  Greed?  Or, just people being smart?

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I posted on Face Book a bit about depression, what it's like, how there is very little to control it.  It is a disease--a chemical imbalance in the brain--a short-wiring of the nerves in the serotonin re-uptake center of the brain.  A couple of "friends" wrote, "We all have times in our lives like that.  We just need to remember out blessings and be glad."

I hooted when I saw their comments.  Lucky for them---they have NO CLUE what "real" depression is.

You can wake up in the morning with money in the bank, all your family and friends well and happy, sun in the sky, not a problem in your life--except you are in the dark pit of depression and you can barely force yourself to get out of bed, let alone get dressed and carry on a conversation.

I have battled it for 40 years now. Sometimes, I can feel it nibbling around the edges of my mind--sometimes, I can go to bed feeling wonderful and wake up in the morning, in that pit, and it doesn't leave for days--if I'm lucky.  If I'm not lucky--it will hang around for months.  It doesn't really matter what is going on in my life--the depression just comes.

When Fred died--I was NOT in depression.  Oh--I was sad and I grieved and I cried (a bit), but I wasn't depressed.  People think that's weird.  There is a great difference between being sad, blue, or down and depression.

Depression is like any other disease--it isn't a way to get attention and it isn't a way to have a pity party.  It is like any disease--arthritis, near sightedness, endometriosis.  You can try and control it, but...it's always there. It can also be genetic--Quite a few of my ancestor's had it--back then, they called it being melancholy.

I spent almost the entire year of 1976 with it.  I got up in the morning, got the kids off to school and went back to bed for the day.  I got up and got dressed a half-hour before they got home and acted like nothing was wrong.  I also had Agoraphobia--where I rarely left the house.  If I went to church, I had to sit in the back row.  If I went to one of the kid's school functions, I sat on the lowest bleacher, near the door. 

 When I went grocery shopping, which wasn't very often because we had a food delivery company, I might get as far as the third aisle and then have to leave my cart and walk very fast to the door and outside.  It was one giant panic attack after another--any time I was out of my house.  

One time, I had to go to a weekly series of meetings at the school for Mother's Club.  I only made it to one meeting because, I couldn't drive my car out of the driveway.  I'd get to the end of the driveway and back up to the garage and go back into the house, where I was safe.  It was awful and as I look through picture albums, there are no pictures of birthday's, Christmas--nothing in that year.  I don't even have a journal for that year--all the other years from 1972 until 2013--but none for 1976.  

The strange thing, some people that have chronic depression are the happiest acting.  They smile and laugh and tell jokes.  It's called compensation.  The minute the people around you quit laughing and leave, the mask comes off, the face falls, the shoulders droop.

A lot of comedians suffer from chronic depression--probably why they went into that line of work--to compensate.  

Right now--I am not depressed.  I'm not even blue or down or melancholy--who knows what tomorrow may bring.  

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My snack and the new cherry topping.

Bits of sweet cherries in a nice thick sauce.

My lucky day!!!