Thursday, Lafayette, Indiana

Maybe you are blessed with a perpetually sunshine personality. Perhaps your mood is stable and its fluctuations are unnoticeable to others. I’m married to someone like that. Which is great…sort of great. On the one hand I can depend on her cheery outlook that rarely sinks. She is dependable and predictable. And our son is much the same. Unfortunately, I am more…let’s say…mercurial!

In daily living, the other side of this equation is, of course, that the bright light of her temperament shines on the shadows of my own darker moods. When I am out of sorts, as they say, the contrast with someone else’s cheery glow makes me feel like an exposed bug, scurrying for cover. It makes self awareness all the more uncomfortable.

The worst aspect of mood is it’s utter unpredictability. A dark mood is no more planned than a day of buoyancy. Certainly there are times when you can feel it coming on, in the aftermath of some event, bad news or conflict. But when the blue moods come from nowhere in particular, at least when you cannot pinpoint the source, it is a contagious condition. Unpredictable moods are so frustrating because, without knowing why you feel low, it means there is nothing else substantive to talk about…except the mood itself. And that goes nowhere.

The more life I experience, the more it seems that depression in some form is virtually everywhere. For some it comes and goes. For others it is worn like a wet, heavy coat. Here I am, with a life blessed and favored, and I can neither see nor control the maddening onset of a detached, grumpy disposition. All I can do, it seems is sit and rue the bad effect it has had on others.

I hope you have a cheery day. I know I will…now…I hope!