New Day

Every day I wake up and it’s another day. 

I feel so lost in this new world. 

I need to start having some sort of schedule, otherwise, the day is lost to YouTube, news articles, and computer games. 

Maybe I should look at it like prisoners sometimes do, “yeah, I can do six months, I’ll come out with a killer body from all the time I have to exercise”. 

Depression is hard.  I’ve had it my whole life.  I’m going through a medication change right now and I’m halfway there, but it takes everything I have to shower, to try to go for a walk.  It’s like I have a 100-pound sack of potatoes on my back and I’m walking through quicksand. 

I know this is temporary, the depression, not the post-stroke life: That’s here to stay. 

This past week I was with family, and we were visiting with a neighbor of my uncles.  When the woman asked what I did for a living, I started to say I was in healthcare, retiring after a stroke.  But my uncle jumped in and said “Julie had a stroke a few years ago and what left with a visual issue.  But she’s just fine now.”  It was sort of like when you comment on the changes post-stroke brings to your life and someone say’s “It’s tough getting old.”  It took me a while to let that go, I realized, people don’t want to think about my, or anyone, having a stroke.  It CAN happen to anyone.  It’s scary. 

The depression will get better, I’ll have more energy to continue to figure out where I am in this new life.  In the meantime, I need to continue with the medication changes, do my best to take care of myself, and know there’s always a new day.