What I feel has come and gone before

To say I’m in a better place is nothing like saying “I’m cured,” or “Look, Ma, no blues!” Rather, let’s just say I’m coping; I’m handling some things better; I’m learning how to deal. Indeed, as I write this I am fighting discouragement about a persistent, pernicious issue that surfaced and has rankled for about a week now.

Do you, like I, dig the word “pernicious”?

And yet!

Signs of health and hope . . .  in no particular order of appearance or importance.

I am much more willing to try and fail in public.

I almost never assume (for example) that when I see choristers talking or laughing, they are being critical of my directing.

Last winter I led a whole hour of a "Music Man" rehearsal in which I expected a pianist who wasn’t there—and I did not walk away mortified. (And to be fair, the reason the pianist was late was because I had not closed the communications loop. Yes, I was responsible—and I owned that—but it previously would have destroyed me to be so publicly inept in so many ways.)

For decades I have rushed out the door in the morning, only to come back for something important that I had left behind . . . and been so frustrated and angry with myself that Karen was left worrying that was my state of mind all day. (It almost never was.) Of course I still rush out without things—car keys, for example, or lunch—but the surge of self-recrimination and idiocy is now almost absent. (Now it’s just a charming absent-mindedness?)

Earlier this fall Karen overheard me making a work call from home. Later she commented on how much different I was on that call. To use her words: self-assured, non apologetic, clear and engaged. (I am a life-long telephobe.) That’s a huge change.

I have begun to think more along the lines of “what do I want to do?” rather than “what should I do?” Naturally there are things I should do that trump what I want to do, but even to think in terms of what I want to do is a new thing for me.

I am finally learning to stop comparing myself to others whose gifts I may admire more than my own. Isn’t it freeing to know that it’s OK to be different from the many impressive people in your life?

My interior monologue is now a dialogue—sometimes an argument—between me and Depression (who, it turns out, had been dominating that monologue). I much less frequently let D. speak out loud for me.

At the last church I served, many people assumed I was “Dr. King.” Yeah, it’s that kind of church. I stopped correcting people, and my pastoral colleagues couldn’t have cared less who had what degree(s). But as time went on I began to feel that in that position I wasn’t . . . enough: intelligent, eloquent, talented, sophisticated enough. That was OK until I felt that maybe according to my colleagues I also wasn’t young enough or cool enough. (Don’t overlook that word “maybe”—see what depression might have been doing to me?) So now I find myself working with traditional college students in an academic setting. God help me if the “not enoughs” of this paragraph kick back in. Actually, God helps me not really care about those measures.

God, Karen, a good therapist, and yes I suppose too a small dose of a mild anti-depressant.

And that’s all I’ll say about this.