New Year’s Fowl

Everyone’s writing about their New Year’s resolutions so I think I should join in. My resolution is to continue what has been a pretty successful two-week effort to control my own moods.

I am a sitting duck for episodes of depression and anxiety, times that I describe as ‘sinking like a stone’ or ‘beating it back with a stick.’ These are usually consequent to nothing, feelings that rise up to choke me while I’m stirring a pot on the stove or wiping the snow from my car. It is a feeling of not having done enough or having done too much, regretting the past or dreading the future. A poisonous little menu, don’t you think?

Sometimes, the moods are dark but fleeting. Sometimes, they move in and stay, fat, sloppy clouds that sit on my lap and drip on my papers for weeks, sometimes months.

I am mindful of the…