Reasons to be cheerful, part 1.

Today, I woke up and didn't mind. What an enormous leap into the real world of living again.
I am astounded that this whole while, living in such a deep and overwhelming sadness, I had no idea. I suppose it goes to show that I don't know everything, which is bizarre because, well.....I was so sure I did know everything, the least you could expect me to know is how I am feeling. Not so. I have been aware that I was unhappy, damn this and bloody that and for heavens sake stupid houses and smells and landlady and cars and everything. I had no idea that I have been as depressed as all that.
I am incredibly judgemental of depressed people, am one to think ( though never say outloud)
" pull yourself together!" I don't mean that in a way that implies depressed people should just cheer up because that isn't possible, if you're sad, you're sad, a chemical imbalance will throw the whole world out of sinc and you have to get help to get well. What I mean is, that because in all my years of depression and as much as I hate to admit it, I am chronically depressed, in the years and years of being swallowed whole by that blanket of hopelessness, I have never succumbed to the sit and stare deal, no sitting in a corner with greasy hair and blank expressions for me, oh no....we must appear to be normal and coping. People must be fed and houses must be cleaned, we must be dressed and washed, ironed and perfectly turned out ( will I ever get over that Dr calling me 'unkempt? No, I think not)
We must keep going and get on, stiff upper lip and all that is great and British.
Until this time.
This time I couldn't even tell myself to pull it together. I couldn't see what was happening, I saw the physical ailments and clung to them, knew that this is it...a REAL illness, look at poor me, you can SEE I am sick and ill and .....wow that illness made me so tired, so tired.
Cook? Nope, not for months. Frozen everything, let me open a packet and throw it in and put it on plates and pretend.
Clean? Ack, pick that up and put it back down there, hmmmm, what should I do with that mess? Walk away from it. Leave it for later, tomorrow, next week, someone else, never.
Shop? Well yes because it has to be done but walking up and down aisles and seeing what we need but, oh ...I can't pick it up, or carry it or buy it because then I will have to put it away and cook it and oh! look! PIZZA in a BOX....frozen vegetables, ready made mashed potatoes, tinned soup, get it.
Sleep? Oh yes. In the day better than at night. Then I would wake up and a half a day has gone, which would make me cry because this is my life and where is it going ?
My little boys? I adore them and at times I have glimpsed through the fog the joy that they bring, mostly though the noise, every noise has been so jarring, so painful and insulting, I longed to escape the noise and the mess that just keeps coming with these boys.

Today I woke up and ...... I didn't mind and the noise didn't hurt, I didn't have to talk myself down the stairs and reassure myself that in just one hour the boys would be in school and then I could sleep again and turn off again.
I spoke to the boys without thinking about it, without being so careful to say the right things, without having to shut my stupid mouth because the wrong things were coming out and the misery was showing.
I didn't feel anger, at all, not once.
I saw H take Seth and Isaac to school and Eli and I went to the doctors, he had an ear ache and needed to get that checked, we went and bought a magazine and a comic and we chatted. I enjoyed being with him, for real, not pretend.
When he went to school I went shopping and I bought real food, aubergines, onions, minced beef, red peppers.
I came home and went to the kitchen, I turned on some great music ( Bread ) and as I cooked I sang along.
While I sang and cooked, H came out and said
" Hey, who's that out here singing? Is that you? You didn't go and get all cheerful on me now did ya?"
Nearly a year this man has lived with me as an unrecognisable fruit loop, without the fruit and not much of a loop. Just a grey blob. Not a word, not once has he said a thing out of line, never tutted or sighed, I think if I try hard I can remember once when he said "NO" a bit sharply when I suggested Pizza for dinner ( again) so he got whatever he did want because sod you then......get it yourself.
He has quietly just done what I didn't. He has filled the gaps with the boys, he has turned back the covers on the bed so that I know that getting back in is OK.
He has crossed the t's and dotted the i's. He has shopped, cleaned, cleared, fetched and carried and the only reward he looks for is that I get better. I saw this man's face change when he saw me cooking and heard me singing.
He is everything I would never dreamed of looking for.
I went out with my sister today, for lunch. We drove out to the moors and ate in a beautiful country pub, olde worlde with its roaring fires and beamed ceilings, old uneven walls and shiny. polished old tables.
It had writing on the walls
" In this spot in 1777, absolutely nothing happened."
It's the small things that amuse me so.
I actually saw the beauty of where we went instead of having to concentrate on not crying, or keeping breathing. Most people hyperventilate when they panic. I stop breathing, even when I don't feel like I am panicking. I hold my breath and have to actually tell myself to breathe, it won't hurt, must breathe and keep breathing and walk and remember which way so I can get back again.
Being depressed is such hard work, when you see a depressed person, really depressed, and you see that absolute stillness, it's a like deep water, still on the outside and underneath, you've got a raging whirlpool. The brain of a person locked in that level of misery and fear is never still, everything is so minutely thought about and rethought about and worried about, the what if's to life are exhausting.
I have no idea what has triggered the end of this bout of extreme depression, except the tribunal, I think moving into this house allowed me to sleep and begin to heal, being told that it is acceptable to feel the way I feel, that being me is alright and I am not an inconvenience to society or the world, or my family. That was a good thing for my fuzzled head to know and understand.
Those little things, like Elijah, who came out to me while I was preparing a salad ( to go with the mousaka, that I MADE, from scratch, this morning, so was all ready when dinner time came around) Eli was crying " Betoz no-body don't want to be my bess friend and no-body don't want to let me do suffin and now I don't have anyfinn to do, wiv no-body. At all. Anywhere."
Instead of telling him to go and whine somewhere else because I am doing dinner and please don't whine all the time, my ears are about to bleed where's daddy????
I told him that I would be his best friend and if he stood on that chair he could chop some cucumber because we love that and boys can be so helpful can't they? To see that little face turn from such dejected nobody loves me face to shiny eyed happy, that makes me feel heartbroken for all the chances I have missed in the last year, it also makes me incredibly joyful because I am not about to miss any more.
So many things to pray for, sometimes I forget to pray because, well where to start?
I think all I need pray for, after the many thanks have been given, is just that I can keep feeling alive again. That I can recognise the signs if I ever begin to slide back down again, I don't ever want to feel that way, ever.
There have been times when I wished that I was in a 'normal' marriage, me here and H there, bringing in the bacon, more and more I can see that we need what we have. I can't imagine how life would be without H here for me, and me here for him.
Let the world be whatever it may be, our world though, seems pretty alright as it is. Thankyouverymuch.