And sometimes, things aren’t so good.

This week has been hard. A number of factors have made it that way.

1. For no reason that I can discern, I am crampy and moody and depressed

2. Except for a brief day of beauty on Tuesday, it’s been chilly and (in the case of yesteday) gray

3. I didn’t hit my desired weight during my Wednesday weigh-in

4. I lost my wedding ring this morning, and with #1-3 above, and my first anniversary less than a week away, I can’t help but see that as a bad omen

5. Did I mention the cramps?

6. And the depression?

I don’t understand sometimes. Tuesday, all was well. Yesterday? Not so much. I know that the one thing that keeps me going sometimes is the exercise, and I went and worked out last night (it helped!) and walked at lunch today (also helpful). I also had a piece of pizza for lunch, which is verboten (because of the cheese, but dammit! Sometimes a girl needs some cheese).

It’s weird how it’s so easy for me to write about weight-loss (I shared my weight with the internets) and shoes and politics and all sorts of things, but to write about depression is hard.

It’s so taboo, and I’m not sure why. Right now, I’m all uncomfortable in the pit of my stomach, and I don’t think its all because of the cramps. It’s because I’m nervous. Wondering if I’m even going to hit publish.

But how many people do you know that suffer from some form of *whisper* mental illness? Those scary, scary words that always conjure up images of Jack Nicholson and straight jackets. I know more than a couple of people who have suffered from mental illnesses – depression and bipolar being the most represented (actually, I don’t know if I’ve ever met anyone who suffered from any other illnesses, although I once worked for someone that I [maliciously and perhaps untruthfully] swore had multiple personality disorder).

I have been diagnosed with bipolar, albeit a fairly mild case. Most of the time. More troubling, especially now that I’ve left the sunny south is the problem that I have (and have had for as long as I can remember) with the Seasonal Affect Disorder. It darkens, and I darken. I try to get out and make sure I’m getting a bit of light every day, but I’m not sure how much that’s helping. It’s getting harder and harder to get out of bed in the morning, harder to concentrate on tasks at hand, harder to care about my lack of concentration.

I guess the bright spot in all this (certainly isn’t the sun, which prefers warmer climes in winter, much like the house martin or the plover) is that I was expecting this – and have an appointment to see what to do about it. And that appointment is only 1.5 weeks away (right after my whirlwind trip to LA, where the sunshine lives).

It’s not like I’m going to throw myself under a bus or anything. In fact, the only real danger at this point is that I won’t get out of my pajamas on Sunday, and will maybe eat some more cheese.

So – if posting is sparse for awhile, that’s why – hard to think of anything to write about, hard to even look for shoes to share….but, because I am a giver (which honestly, part of the problem, I think), here are the shoes that I purchased in Chicago this summer…can’t believe I haven’t previously shared them!

(Cheaper online than they were at the store I purchased them in….)

So – there you go. I think I’m all done with honesty for awhile, so maybe tomorrow we can talk about how I won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2009.

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