Thanks, O.E.

The passing of time will ease this pain and regret that I feel. I learned that in Sept, when I recovered from severe, unhealthy grief to what I would describe as "normal grief." Before that, I had been wishing I had never been born. In June, very briefly, I had felt suicidal. I posted on my threads here that I did not believe I could recover emotionally from how grief-stricken I felt.

Life surprises us. I was wrong. The horrid anguish of fresh grief does not last. Others were telling me that "It's always there, but you learn to live with it." Even that's not true, either, IMHO. Acute grief, IMO, is temporary. If it fails to subside, then the person has some other severe psychological damage that the grief is simply triggering. I thought my propensity for depression was that kind of damage, and that I was doomed to unrelenting awful pain from thereon in. It turns out that I'm not that damaged.

Chronically recurring depression is a miserable cross to have to drag along through life. But it hasn't kept me from living a fairly normal life. In between episodes of depression, I have stretches of time during which my quality of life is pretty good. There is enough in my makeup that's healthy. It turns out that I can cope with great loss. I had before in my life. In Sept, I regained my emotional footing and knew I would be basically alright. But depressive tailspins can, and will, still occur. That's never going to stop being a chronic challenge. That's who I am.

So I have this tailspin to pull up out of. A lot has gone right in the transition I've had to make in adjusting to being alone without a sig. other. I've been lucky, in how much has gone right. I found the help I needed for things that were too much for me alone - like physically clearing out his apt and getting my apt cleaned and straightened out. The arrangement I made with the car seemed nice and neat and easy. I was hoping for too much from a person I really didn't know. Her taking the car reduced my stress. I spent 7 months not worrying about the car. That was a luxury that ended up exacting a price. So, what's done is done.

Thank you, everyone, for understanding that the car represented a whole lot more than just the big, old machine that it is. I probably couldn't have sold it for more than a few hundred bucks; it was a 2002. Since getting my driver's license, 4 cars of mine have been totaled out in accidents. I got through those losses just fine. When I lost that 4rth car, the outcome of that actually ended up benefitting me a lot. Like I said above, life sure can surprise us.

I have to do now, what I did in Sept. I have to focus on what needs my attention next. That means getting up from this couch, getting dressed and tackling the paperwork involved in getting the legal authority to dispose of the car. I guess I'll start that tomorrow.

Procrastinating. If I could stop doing the big P, I'ld have fewer problems to untangle. I let things go too long.