Two Sides of the Fence

I apologize for not writing more recently. There is going to be a bluntness to this post you won't often get from me. I'm usually much more cerebral and intellectual in my posting, but reader, this time, I think the truth shows more about what this blog is about, what my life is about, and how my goals are colored though that lens. So bear with me as I bare my soul here a bit and please don't think differently of me if you enjoy my blog. It's still about homesteading and it will always be, but maybe with a different angle than you are used to.
The truth is I have bipolar disorder and have been battling an awful depression, something straight out of a greytoned commercial where all you do is look sad and sleep. Until today I think I could honestly say I could barely smile and felt I had little or nothing to look forward to in life at all. I'd cry at random if you looked at me sideways or sometimes even if you just said I did something wrong (just ask my poor boss). I was a hot mess, but I think that's finally lifting a bit. When I get in a funk like that it's hard to think let alone write intelligible sentences that might provoke thought or tug heartstrings. Hence my absence here. A friend of mine met me for dinner the other day and asked if I was quitting the blog because I hadn't written in so long. It was hard not to cry just at that. This blog is my life and writing is what I am. Anyone who has ever battled depression knows it is more than just being sad: it is all-encompassing. You feel like you are drowning and it is hard to remember to wake up and brush your teeth let alone be grateful for what you have and how well everything is going in your life.
It needs to be said that my life has been almost without drama and as normal as can be through my whole depressive episode, although we did lose a car and have to suddenly replace it. No one has gotten sick or died, we are all still employed (again, thank you to my very understanding new supervisor), my house is fine, all is well... just I wasn't and I couldn't help it.Really I couldn't, and for no good reason at all. Thanks you to my fabulous friends and family who have been helping me as I adjust to a new life with meds and learning to combat my stress when it starts before it gets too terribly bad and learning to adjust to sometimes rapid ups and downs my mind throws at me.

The upswing started Thanksgiving Day, when I awoke to my dog going crazy in the back yard after several hours of too much depressive sleep. I looked out the back window to find my neighbor's cow, Uncle Wiggly, staring back at me from next to the chicken coop, knee deep in the mud that is our yard when it's as rainy as it's been. He'd decided to take a Thanksgiving morning romp by himself outside his pasture and had busted out and wandered over to our yard.
Ordinarily I'd just walk over and have the neighbors help with the cow but they are currently in Russia for a month adopting some children so no one was home and I had no one to call about it. We stood there staring at each other for a few minutes and he tried to eat my daughter's pants until we began to walk back toward his pasture. Thankfully, he followed us and waited patiently until I figured out how to open the gate he had busted through wide enough for him to get back in and stayed there until we discovered how to latch it back up securely.
So that's how this wanna-be farmer spent her Thanksgiving, sweet talking cattle and taking Prozac. Some things around here might not look normal and I might be fighting  this uphill battle in my mind everyday until things get a little leveled out, my posts may be sporadic and make little sense sometimes, but deep down at the bottom of it all there's a lot of heart, a big part of me that just wants to provide as much for my family from these 2.5 acres that I can, that just wants to be happy with the simple things and leave the drama for some other folks. If it takes meditation and pharmaceuticals to make it happen, so be it. I'll be chasing after my dream with this bottle of pills by my side to keep me going.
My friends can't be available 24/7, so here's to hoping you don't think less of this homesteader for needing a little help to get by from some other source and that you'll keep listening to my ramblings whether I am a little down on my luck or grinning like a cow out of his pasture on Thanksgiving morning.