Another Gray Day

My gramma tells me that my grandpa used to say "another gray day" a lot to describe the weather - we are, after all, Minnesotans & this describes 70-80% of our weather. It may not be precipitating, but sometimes you wonder if the sun is ever coming back.

I don't like the expression because it reminds me too much of how depressions feels, like fingernails down the chalkboard of my past. One must understand the phrase is uttered with a kind of stalwart powerlessness - it's gray today, it was gray yesterday, it's going to be gray tomorrow, and we just have to put up with it and soldier on.

I won't lie and say I no longer have depression. I don't know if one is ever "cured" of it. I'm beginning to suspect it's a chronic disease. Most of the time, I am simply happier, better equipped to deal with the low points, and more hopeful about the high points yet to come.

But, this whole week has been "another gray day" inside and out. And I find that incredibly frustrating. It affects how I interact - or don't interact - with people. It affects what I eat - and shouldn't be eating. It affects my motivation to write, my motivation to do anything, really. I just went to see King Tut yesterday and was, for the most part, nonplussed. Not because it isn't incredible, but because everything I feel about anything is muted by a dark cloud. I hate being here because I work very hard, all the time, to not be. And don't even get me started on "fair" and "not fair," I could rail at the Heavens until Judgment Day.

It's Easter and I have absolutely no desire to go see family. Honestly, when I get this way, I don't know if the feeling this way is worse than the pretending to be happy. If it were Thanksgiving, I suppose I would say I am thankful that this doesn't happen as often as it used to, that this is a surprisingly low slump that has not had an equal in three years, and that is something to be very grateful for. But this is Easter, about new beginnings, rebirth, glory, rising. And I seem to have backpedaled. What's the message there?

Still, I am hopeful tomorrow will be sunny, and I hope everyone else's Easter is a happy one.