Not always looking at the holes

Robin Williams’ suicide made a lot of people start talking about depression.

I don’t know if that’s why I keep hearing about it from people I know, but I’m glad they’re getting it out in the open.

I know from my own bout with it a few years ago that feeling alone in it is a huge part of the problem. Or seeing the wonderful lives of all of your Facebook friends.

At least that’s the way it was when I was suffering a few years ago.

It was at the heart of the Recession, and that wasn’t helping things much, either.

Plus, I had quit my job of two decades a couple years earlier and the work I’d had came to a standstill and I was paralyzed by a lack of confidence.

I never considered doing myself harm, largely because I couldn’t do that to my children. But I fantasized a lot about dying. For instance, I’d had an out-of-control semi slide through the winter slush into my little Saturn and just crunch the rear end of it. I kept wishing it had caught me a split second earlier, right smack dab in the driver’s door.

But here I am, four or five years later and I don’t always look at the holes in everything. I realize there’s good and bad in every situation. Sure, you’re naive if you only dwell on the good, but you’re just as wrong if you dwell on the bad.

And my career is moving again.

So I hope that anyone in that tunnel stays with it and tries to move forward, because it does (most likely) end.