Picking Up the Pieces

Yesterday I was a bit down. I can’t say that I am over the moon today, but I got a good night’s rest and things don’t seem as bleak.

I will always have my depression and other illnesses with me. There is nothing I can do to banish them forever. That is why I am not waking up to delete my previous entry on this blog. I want that to stand as the real take that it is. I feel that way a lot. I deal with those symptoms every day, to varying degrees. That is why I am writing this Sunday morning.

It ain’t all sunshine and roses, but then again, it isn’t all clouds and gloom either. I believe that in most lives you have a balance of the two.

How does one pick up the pieces of a broken life and start again? I ask myself this question often. I’ll say right now that I don’t have a definite answer. But I do have some techniques that work for me.

First: clean up. My muse Adam Savage, former Mythbuster, relates that when he faces a blank page, writer’s block, or a creative impasse, he takes to cleaning. There is always something needing cleaning in his workshop, so he starts by putting away the one tool he knows he doesn’t need. Then he sweeps, or dusts. Straightens the workbench. Takes out the trash. By the time he has finished, he has not only a clean workspace, but usually an idea of what to do.

After a day like yesterday, I find it helpful to clean up my mind. I recharge, reset, and re-energize. I have had a good night’s sleep. That usually does the trick in turning my attitude from grey midwinter to yellow midsummer. I have a good breakfast. (Today was eggs, sausage, and an English muffin.) Then I start on a positive note. (You are reading it.)

Second: forward momentum. Savage is fond of saying that when you don’t know how to proceed on a build or a project, just pick one thing that you know you can do, and do that. Then take the next step after that. And the next. Eventually you will have built the thing or finished the project.

I think I will spend a bit of time today reading through what has been written in the book my wife started, just to take a restock of where I am in the writing process. That task alone may sap my creative energy for today, but it will make it easier to continue the project the next opportunity that I have.

Third: don’t stop. I have found that when I want to take a journey, and the going seems long, it takes more effort to stop than to simply take a few more steps closer to my destination. Every job has some drudgery in it, and gets unpleasant at times, but the end is always closer than it seems. Sometimes it is the peak of the mountain that you can’t see over that is usually soon under your feet. Just keep walking.

Even if I only write a sentence today, or edit a few, I will have made a bit of progress. That is why I am starting with a blog post: I am getting my fingers used to typing and my brain used to writing. Getting in stride, as it were.

Lastly: celebrate the little things. Honestly, life is not one big whole. It is a myriad of little ups and downs, wins and losses, achievements and failures. No one fails completely at life, and no one wins completely. Every day, every hour really, there are opportunities to succeed and to meet a dead end. Yesterday I wrote that I felt like I faced three. Well today, I can celebrate what I have, to whit: a creative spirit and sight to see beyond. In fact, I don’t have three dead ends. I have three new roads to walk down. Hurrah!

Already I feel much better. To bring this all to a close, I once again turn to Adam Savage. He says that emotions do not dictate actions. Feeling a particular way about something does not need to lead to certain actions. Anger does not need to lead to an outburst. Depression does not need to lead to inaction. Happiness does not need to lead to effusive over-action. I can feel the emotion, but then I have the agency to choose what to do. I often forget that I have control over how I react. In most cases, that is all I do have control over anyway.

Today I am picking up the pieces from last night and pondering what I can make from them. When I am finished, who knows what I will have? Even I don’t know, not right now. But I do know that I can make something new and wonderful. That is what life should be all about. Taking what you have and creating the most amazing thing you can out of it.