Another day of feeling pretty blah.

I can’t wait to get my full set of meds tomorrow. Once I have them, I am going to try to go on a bit of a health kick. Plenty of fluids, cut back on the carbs, look around for more actual decent content for my diet instead of all the crap I eat.

I am just sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. I want to face the day with some intestinal fortitude, not to mention a little more wiggle in my step and maybe, even, a cheerful and open attitude to the world.

It could happen.

It is beginning to really bother me that I have only used my bus pass one time since I got it. That one time did me a world of good in terms of how I feel both physically and mentally, so I should really plan another day out.

Just me, my bus pass, and the GVRD. Maybe I should finally take a trip on the Richmond arm of the Skytrain. After allm, it’s called the Millennium Line, and it’s 2014. I am kind of overdue.

Dunno where I will go. Someplace pleasant. Maybe find a park somewhere and a nice comfortable park bench and do a little writing out in the world.

I certainly could use the fresh air. There is something that happens when I spend enough time away from this cramped and dusty little room of mine. The air in my lungs turns over and I start feeling way better because I am finally getting enough oxygen for all my little cells.

I am thinking of asking Joe if it would be possible to set up someplace I can sit out on our balcony. Traditionally, we have mostly used our little balcony as storage space, pack-rats that we are.

But it should be possible to set up some sort of nook where I can take in sunshine and fresh air with minimal social exposure. Enough days of that, and who knows? Maybe I will have the energy to be happy.

Because happiness takes batteries. Happy people have enough energy to go do the things that keep them happy, and can thus remain motivated and energetic. They have excellent spark plugs, a dynamic dynamo, and a good strong battery.

But us unhappy people just don’t have the energy to go get energy, more or less. Even if we know damned well that doing X will make us feel better, we still lack the energy/motivation/whatever to actually go do it. We are starting cold every single time, and our engines are pulling a far heavier load.

Depression is one of the most invisible illnesses there is. Even other mental health disorders draw attention to themselves by making the patient do crazy stuff.

But I don’t do anything crazy. I don’t do much of all, to be honest. And in most circumstances, nobody notices the person who is not doing anything. We just fade into the wallpaper and lead lives of quiet desperation.

We generally can’t even articulate what it wrong with us. I mean, I am a very articulate person, but I still find it very hard to explain to others (or myself) why I can’t do certain things that seem perfectly logical, sensible, and achievable.

I just…. can’t. There is something very wrong with my inner machinery and as a result, the normal rules do not work for me. All I can do with my day is survive it, it seems.

I really do not want to believe that, though. Dreams are precious, and mine include being a far more active and engaged person. In the service of that dream, I have to believe that I could be doing more with my life.

And if that opens the door to self-loathing, I will just have to deal with that.

Learned a freaky cool thing today. What would you expect to find inside if you sliced open a chrysalis one day after it had been formed around the caterpillar?

You’d expect to find the caterpillar, right? Maybe slightly transformed? A little bit different at most?

That’s certainly what I thought, and I am pretty sure that is what I was taught in junior high science. But it turns out that is totally wrong.

You know what you find inside that chrysalis? Goo. Nothing but goo. The caterpillar is completely gone and there is nothing but goo left in its place. It is that goo that will somehow become the butterfly.

Some scientists noticed this, and decided to find out whether or not anything of the caterpillar remained in the butterfly. So they trained some caterpillars to associate a certain odor with a painful electric shock. Soon, the caterpillar just hated that smell and reacted strongly to it.

Those caterpillars then pupated and five weeks later, butterflies emerged. And sure enough, the butterflies reacted to the odor just the way the caterpillars did.

So something of the caterpillar survived their radical transformation into goo. That is an amazing thought. From the point of view of an observer, it would seem that the caterpillar, in effect, completely dies. There is nothing left of it. It is as gone as if it had fallen into a vat of acid.

Yet something remains.

It’s no wonder that observers of this transformation have likened it to a resurrection, not to mention THE Resurrection. IT is such a perfect, living metaphor for spiritual transformation and transcendence.

What I still don’t understand is… why does the butterfly need the larval stage at all? Why can’t eggs hatch into butterflies? What vital ingredient requires an intermediary stage?

Is it just a matter of adding mass? Certainly a butterfly is bigger than its egg. But lots of other species, including others with no parental care, do not use this middle step.

I have no idea what the middle stage is for, but I really want to know. I have a strong intuition that the answer could have great metaphorical value for me.

Maybe I have simply been in my middle stage all these years.

If so, I am going to make one HECK of a butterfly!