I bought a bag of Stevia today. I like it. This might be the right sugar substitute for me. I'm losing weight because I cut out most of the junk food. If I can cut out a little more of the sugar that's still in my diet, it'll be great. I'm not grossly overweight. I lost ten pounds in the last three months. The nurse at the doctor's office said if I lost five more, I'll be at ideal weight for my height and age. The first ten pounds didn't start too easy. But it got easier. The exercise is good for me too. My mood the last few days has been good. This is about where I want to stabilize. In a few weeks I should know if I'm still having subdepressive phases. I wasn't turning to junk food to feel better before. I was just eating it all the time. I will have to make sure I don't turn back to it on the downside if I have one.

The company I work for was involved in a community project over the last few months. I wasn't personally involved, so I felt it odd that the person organizing a thank you ceremony asked if I'd be there to represent the company. I asked her what help from my company really mattered for the project. Supposedly, my coworker who helped the most wasn't going to be available for the ceremony. But I checked around and found out what she had to do at the ceremony time will be the usual stuff and could be covered by someone else. We cover her work when she's on vacation, so we should be able to handle it for an hour while she takes her rightful place at a recognition event. And I don't think she gets thanked enough for the work she does. I prodded the right people at the workplace to make sure she'll be allowed to leave for the ceremony where her name will be read in front of the crowd along with those of the others who helped. She had no idea the ceremony was going to happen until I told her I worked all this out. She said I made her day.

Today, there is someone I'm tremendously happy for. Someone whose time at one job was coming to an end several months ago. I asked her to keep in touch. She hasn't. I tried contacting her today through a social networking site but she's only letting some people have those privileges. All I wanted to do was cheer for her, congratulate her, and let her know I'm happy she's back into another job I know she'll love. But it looks like yet another person I felt good about being friends with didn't get enough out of the acquaintance to keep it up. The story of my life.

I guess I need to learn to enjoy the lilies in the garden as much as I can before they dry up and crumble away.

There’s a waterfall I like to visit. I can’t see it. I can’t feel any drops of water reaching me or any cool wet breezes coming from it. The waterfall has no smell. I can only hear it. It’s with me all the time, yet I have to go to great lengths to even get close.

I have to find a quiet place away from the sounds of children playing, cars going by, and modern appliances doing whatever they do whenever they’re programmed to do it. Even my own breaths or intestines gurgling drown out the sound of the waterfall. But when I finally escape all the noise, the water rushes loudly.

Since I can’t see, feel, or smell it, I can’t know it’s really a waterfall. It sounds somewhat like the wind blowing through tree leaves or tall grass. It also sounds like a steady rain falling on a roof right above. Those are enjoyable in their own way. Maybe I’m really hearing the sound of my soul.

Written September 20, 2011

I feel such a joy tonight I haven’t felt in a long time. I didn’t do anything for it. It’s because of something someone else is going through. My colleague A--- is engaged. I don’t know much about her personally. I only see her a few times a year when we’re both at some work related event together. She talks mostly about professional stuff and I talk mostly about my children.

When she told me today, I was immediately happy for her. As I looked into her eyes, I saw that her happiness runs deep. I think she was waiting for a long time to have news like that to share, she’s been telling it for a while, and she’s enjoying telling it. Maybe she’s anticipating having children of her own to talk about.

Maybe she looks like that all the time and I never noticed because I never really looked into her eyes. But tonight I saw a beauty that transcends. It was just a few hours ago and I don’t remember now what color her eyes are. I remember feeling a happiness in her soul inducing a happiness in mine.

There are plenty of people I’m acquainted with who have told me the same kind of news without stirring up any joy in me. After all, marriage is just something people go through. Sure, I give the obligatory congratulations. Tonight, I felt it and meant it and I’m going to sleep smiling.

This is the upside of the mood disorder I’m coming to grips with. I am cyclothymic. It’s like bipolar disorder but milder. I can be sad with nothing to feel sad about or happy when everything’s going wrong. Of course, there are times when I’m sad or happy appropriately. Sometimes, I feel an extra dimension to my emotions. Something can go wrong and that extra kick to the emotion makes me feel worthless. Or good news can come along at just the right time to make me ecstatic.

It’s the upside I don’t want to lose. As I wrestle with the idea that maybe something else is wrong with me (even though cyclothymia answers so many questions about things I’ve been through), I wonder if medication should be part of my management. I’d like to lose the down days when work feels like work, mistakes feel like colossal failures, and if there have to be 24 hours in a day I’d rather not do anything with them. I want to keep the up days when work is play, mistakes are just trivial parts of such fun work, and every second is a joyous occasion. Some medication doesn’t let you have it both ways. Both edges go dull. Maybe that’s appropriate for people at the extremes but it’s not for me.

I didn’t know I was cyclothymic until about a year ago. I’ve been depressed many times, but not so badly that I missed work or bailed out of a marriage. I kept reading about depressive disorders because I had no idea having a good time is a symptom of a problem. Somehow, I stumbled across an article about cyclothymia and my whole adult life came into a focus it hadn’t been in before.

A---’s news fine focuses everything. I want to keep the capacity to be happy, sometimes deliriously, about things people should be happy about.