i thought it was purged from my life forever until the heavy nameless weight settles in, cuts my joy in one swift blow and the thick suffocating darkness begins to cloud my eyes. my face loses animation - the mask replaces expression - separation from all that is living and moving. loneliness - sadness - with no identifiable source. like falling into a well that is deep and cold and dark and i know i am drowning but my mouth is powerless to call out - the nightmare where the voice cannot produce sound - the legs cannot move - the hands and the soul too weak to pull myself out of the quicksand - going deeper. the little blue pills - my life blood - seem to lose potency for a while - but it seems like the while lasts longer than a life.

this is what depression feels like. it feels like smooth cold rocks tied around my heart - stomach aching with longing - like the world has changed overnight and become a friendless, hopeless place - a place too difficult to navigate in my aloneness so i shut the door - close my eyes - wish i could sleep until it passes. it feels like if i could only find a jagged edge on the heavy rock i would know where the hurt is coming from and pull it away from myself - ease the sadness - but it has no cutting edges, no open sores, no bloody gashes to name the source of the suffering. it is an insidious hopelessness that seeps in quietly and holds on from the inside - irrational heartache - foreboding that sits in the edge of my awareness and colors everything black and gray - and no matter how tight and knotted my stomach becomes it cannot keep the desperation at bay. it is knowing in my rational mind that nothing has changed but my mind - life is as it was yesterday when i could laugh - as it was last week when i was happy to be alive - but the knowing doesn't erase the pain.

these are days i wish i could be someone else - someone who is stable and constant - someone who has never experienced depression so ugly and life altering it cannot ever truly be gone for good. these are the days i have to gather all that is left in me - remember what i have taught my children about living one minute at a time - because i can do that - one minute is short and i can do that. i have to suit up for the war inside me that will never end - but today's battle can be won. this cold black depression can be choked and held until it releases me in the sunlight and feeling returns. age and experience tell me it will not last forever - it always passes - the dread fades away and clarity returns and i will remember with gratitude the gifts piled at my feet.

maybe not this morning, but soon.

some days peace isn't in me.

i feel the time coming to morph into fragments of my old self - the independent gypsy who loves home, traveler, explorer, lover of adventure and change and challenging the mind and heart. if i were twenty two again i would travel - without money - because that gets everything more real - gets you closer to the earth and the natives and takes the cushion from under you so your feet are grounded in the beautiful earthy grit of the real world - real people - eye-opening ground-shaking differences that show who we really are - who is out there - how truly immense, immeasurable, vital, alive and electric the world is. sometimes i don't know how to get there - how to step over or through the decades of protective walls i have built - layers of meaningless shit that wraps me like a mummy and leaves me paralyzed and motionless. i want it stripped away - to be new and raw - to be like a newborn baby who winces from the light and shivers from the slightest breeze, who loses herself in laughter or tears or delight as the emotion flows like water. painful - yes! - breath-taking - yes! - vulnerable - yes! - but most definitely alive - alive - alive!

and even as i write this i realize i was not all those things in my youth. many parts of myself i don't wish to ever see again - the fearful girl and young woman with a chip on her shoulder the size of montana who ran from difficulties and saw responsibility as a mountain best not climbed. i want the spirit of living pure and simple - the connection with nature - the wanderer searching for all that life and the heart and the mind contain - the courage to stretch all of me to the limits. i want fearless joy like i never had until cuts and bruises and heart-breaking depression and tiny bits of wisdom opened me up to receive it. i am called to a new way of living that does no harm - a life built only on kindness - a gentler way that reveres all that has been created here in my world at this moment - but also in the larger world where there is no break in the connections between us all - where i can see all of life reflected in a single tear or in the unwavering gaze of a small child or in anything seen and understood against the purity of nature and innocence.

learning about buddhism is opening me to greater understanding of myself and my existence in this world. i do not wish to become a buddhist. i have a god, a faith, a belief system that is firmly in place in my soul - but i don't always know how to live my life in a way that is equal to what i believe. love is the key to my faith - the key to every faith - but it has been surrounded by dogma and doctrine that seeks to separate human beings from humanity - divides us with rules and rituals with very little meaning against the greatness of love. dictums taken as words straight from god's mouth, yet they are not from god - they are from people who struggle with the same human flaws i have - people who sometimes get caught up in power and wealth and having the last word at all costs - people who swirl in a cycle of behavior that excludes and judges, separates, belittles, cuts, destroys, angers, confuses. i want to cut through to the heart of pure light and burn away the rest - leave only the purity and the warm truth - whatever that may be. i am not afraid of seeking the truth of this mystery - i am more afraid of falling into the rigid ugliness of judgement and unchallenged dogma that has tortured and murdered in the name of god. we catholics, protestants, evangelizing do-gooders have done unspeakable harm in the name of faith. how can we reconcile that kind of destruction with the love called for by jesus and all the other truly holy beings who have touched this earth? i want to live my life in the image of christ's pure acceptance and tolerance and unconditional love - things i have not found in religion.

the dalai lama says buddhist teachings are a science of the mind - not a religion. but i can see why some might want to make it their religion because it is about unity and kindness - calling for tolerance and openness and taking action only when it is without harm to anyone or anything. this is doctrine i can live with - but i will not make it a religion. i don't want a religion - i only want a way of knowing my god and living a life that would please him - doing no harm - loving in an open-handed way so the people in my path can live by their own hearts. maybe in that inclusive accepting nonjudgment i can find a way to live holy -

in reverence to god and people and all of creation.

a journey to peace.