Dealing with setbacks

I guess it's going on a month now since the last time I posted to this blog.  In those weeks I haven't really been riding my bike.  I'm afraid I've been terribly depressed, and trying to cope with personal heartbreak which has brought on many sick days of migraine.  Or just plain not feeling able to move.

Last time I posted that Johan and I broke up, he and I were still limping along in some kind of friendship, and hoping perhaps someday we might get back together.  Since then, things have really dissolved between us.  I still have trouble understanding how something that seemed so good could have evaporated like that.  It still doesn't make sense to me, and I'm still hurting over it.  We are no longer even speaking to each other, and I guess the current plan is that we never will again.  It boggles my mind.

I guess it would be wrong of me to go into details here.  This isn't supposed to be a blog about relationships, but about biking.  But insofar as my biking has been affected by this relationship I did need to say something.    Losing a love has cast me into a depression, and that has affected my motivation to leave the house. 

For the past few weeks friends have offered to take me shopping just about every time I would have had to muster up the gumption to go on my own.  So there hasn't been a huge motivation to bike just because we needed groceries, as there has been other times.    I've accepted their help gratefully.   I've been sick and depressed, and with fall weather being as chancy as it has been I would have had a miserable time handling things alone.

I know that sooner or later I have to buck up my courage and get out there again.  As Terry Pratchett once said, lately my courage has been several letters of the alphabet away from "bucked up".

The depression is not okay.  Basic household chores aren't getting done.  I don't even want to shower every day.  I cry helplessly for hours sometimes.  It is seriously interfering with my life.  Therefore, I have made an appointment with Kitsap Mental Health this coming Tuesday to be evaluated for some kind of medication like Prozac or something, which might assist me in gathering my courage once again.

I need all the help I can get right now.  I feel like my life, my zest, my enthusiasm has all basically abandoned me, and I can't find my way back to it.  I know Johan is gone, and that is unfortunate.  But my kids are still here, and they need me to be more on my game than this.   Even if I could feel just numb, but could FUNCTION, that would be something better than this.

In other news: I am happy to report that my Social Security Disability claim is now finalized.  I have received my first month's check, and am rather thrilled that it is about twice as much as I used to receive on welfare.  As it turns out, I am not receiving SSI though.   I am receiving early retirement, drawing from the years I worked as a grocery checker (which was a union job).   Part of me feels very relieved at this.  My disabilities are not necessarily visible, nor are they mostly physical, but they do add up to a very severe interference with my ability to hold a job.  I did hold a job most of the years of my life until recently, even through difficulties like divorce and homelessness.  But now the constellation of Asperger's Syndrome, depression, and severe chronic migraines along with other minor issues like PTSD or bipolar disorder or whatever other mental disorder labels I might carry are finally getting to be too much to fight.  I'm extremely grateful that now at least I do not have to fear that my children and I will have to suffer homelessness ever again.  I do not need to fear that I cannot provide the clothes and supplies that my kids need for school.  I can plan to buy Christmas presents this year.  I can plan to send my daughter to the prom, wearing a beautiful gown.  We will never be rich, but at least we need not fear the severe poverty that we've lived through any more.

Part of my plans for our new prosperity include buying the right kind of bicycling clothes and all-weather wear.  Such outfits are generally several hundred dollars each.  To a family that normally buys secondhand clothing for a maximum of $7.00 per piece, that seemed completely out of reach before.  Now I know I can afford them, if I budget correctly.  I'm sure the right kind of padded shorts, rain pants, jerseys and jackets will make it a lot easier to protect us from excess moisture either from our bodies or from Mother Nature.  The technology in those fabrics and construction is far beyond a simple pair of shorts and T-shirt. 

Also, I'm planning to invest in a motorized version of the Yuba Mundo.  I'm not sure if mine can be retrofitted with a motor, or if I'll need to buy a new motorized version, but we definitely plan to quit fighting the hills alone anymore.   

So my two major biking obstacles are soon to be addressed: Weather, and Weakness.  Hopefully, with better protection, and a little assistance, our biking journey will not fall by the wayside, but will continue to rise to new successes.