I see a red door and I want it painted black

You know how people say not to google health stuff because it will lead you to the worst possible scenario? You should just wait and speak to your doctor.

Because if you google you may end up thinking maybe you have, oh, say, liver failure when in fact the likely explanation is hay fever.

So today, at the start of my annual physical, when the nurse asked me the list of mental health questions, I answered honestly.

Have you felt depressed, hopeless, or down in the past month? 

Yes. 

Rarely, often, almost every day? 

Almost every day.

They asked whether I've lost interest in things that usually bring me joy. 

Yes. 

Lost motivation? 

Yes. 

Am I thinking of harming myself?

No.

And then she did an EKG and the doctor came in.

My heart is terrific, apparently.

I had a whole list of questions for my doctor. 

One of them was about the whites of my eyes.

Because the other day in yoga, we were facing the mirror wall, all up close. And I was like, the whites of my eyes are not white.

I didn't think they were yellow, but they were not white.

As soon as I got home I googled and I was all, oh my god, my liver.

I've never had hepatitis, and when we lived in India, we got regular gamma globulin (painful, in the butt muscle) injections to prevent Hep A. In Peace Corps those of us who worked in health had to get Hep B shots.

But I'm on some intense medication. What's it doing to my liver?

So today at the doctor I bugged my eyes out all, "Look! The whites of my eyes are not white!"

And my doctor said, "It looks like either you've been rubbing your eyes a lot or you have allergies. Have you been rubbing your eyes?"

No.

"Do you have allergies?"

Yes.

"Did you google and freak yourself out?"

Oh, absolutely.

She was like, "These look like allergy eyes." Her suggestion is take allergy pills or get allergy eye drops.

So we did the whole physical, and I was about to head off and get blood work when my doctor said, sooooo, about these mental health answers...

At which point I started to cry.

Because that is how I am right now.

And this is what I told her: I know I'm struggling. I just don't know what to do about it.

My favorite antidepressant makes my hips hurt because of whatever the aromatase inhibitor is doing. And it's my favorite after years of trying different ones and titrating up and down and being tired and gaining weight and being all clenchy and angry and whatever else side effects. 

My favorite one is my favorite for many good reasons. Except that now, in conjunction with my aromatase inhibitor, it makes my hips ache quite badly.

And choosing between cancer prevention and mental health, I have to go with the former.

If chronic pain is optional, I choose not to have it.

So I've been doing the following: Using my full-spectrum lamp. Eating really well. Exercising every day. Getting as much sunlight as I can. Seeing my therapist.

I know all the things you're supposed to do.

I think this is seasonal. Though I wasn't diagnosed for years, I've had seasonal depression since high school. 

Sometimes people say things like, but it's so warm! It's not even winter! 

It's true, it's been delightfully and alarmingly warm. But the fact is that I could be 100 degrees, but if it's pitch dark by 5:00 pm, that is hard on people like me. 

Our serotonin gets re-uptaken too easily or something like that.

I know this kind of depression. Hello darkness, my old frenemy.

One of the tip-offs for me is that I'm gravitating to all black. I've forced myself into some of my fun clothing, because I firmly believe in dopamine dressing.

But right now it just feels like I'm in someone else's clothing.

I bought a second pair of black leggings for yoga. Basically all of my yoga wear is brightly colored.

So, yah. (A phrase Nick hates.)

I cry easily. I don't want to do much of anything. I hate most of humanity, although it's hard to know if that's depression or warranted.

I would prefer to never leave my house, but I do, every weekday morning, for yoga. I walk the dog. I bike a couple miles to therapy, and then I bike back.

I feed myself. I feed my family. I bathe pretty regularly. 

I hate my face and I hate my hair but I don't know if that's depression and I'm hoping whether it is or isn't it's not permanent.

But I currently feel kind of like when that bug came to earth in Men in Black and put on a human suit. I'm doing many normal human things, but kind of fakely and somewhat awkwardly.

But things feel kind of pointless. Hopeless. Not completely, but mostly. But again, it's hard to know if that's my depression talking or the way the world is.

I really enjoy my family most of the time. I'd like to spend all my time at home with them. 

I am able to find joy, and sometimes I laugh out loud. I still have my excellent sense of humor.

I'm not contemplating self-harm. I'm nowhere near the bridge.

I want to curl up in a ball and sleep most of the time. I don't. But I want to.

Anyway, I told my doctor, who I love, that I just don't know what to do.

So what do I do?

Do I maybe try Prozac, the OG, which I've never tried, to see if that helps my mood and doesn't cause me physical pain?

My hesitation is that I don't want to further burden my kidneys or liver. And it might make my joints hurt.

Even though I am very happy to know my eye issue is allergies and not my organs failing.

Or do I just keep doing what I'm doing, with the knowledge that in just over a month the days will begin to lengthen again? The sun will return.

The next couple months will be hard, but there is hope on the horizon. Like, maybe March-ish it'll start improving?

She didn't know. I don't know. We'll see how my bloodwork looks. I'm going to discuss it with my therapist.

And then we'll make a plan.

So, yah.

And the days go by, like a strand in the wind

Dear Nick,

Seventeen years ago tonight I walked into the Tabard Inn on what would be my last first date. 

I love this date, and used to document it annually, but I've kind of fallen off on that. But I love the first year post.

We hadn't yet had kids, so I didn't yet know the phrase "warmy-coldy"—but warmy-coldy perfectly describes the November weather that evening. Which I wasn't dressed for when I left for work in the morning.

I'd have been on time if I hadn't gone home to change.

Well, I've contended that for years, but with my current understanding of my ADHD and my fraught relationship with time, and my jaded view of dating, I probably would've been slightly late anyway.

Back then, I didn't wear my glasses all the time, because I could see clearly at distance. And so if men hadn't treated me like I was smart when I wore my glasses, and not so smart when I didn't, I wouldn't have started wearing my glasses out at night.

And then after that one Match guy asked if I wore my glasses to look less pretty, I defiantly always wore them on dates.

But otherwise, I wouldn't have been wearing my glasses, so they wouldn't have fogged up when I arrived, slightly late and slightly blindly flustered, at the Tabard.

And you wouldn't have had something to tease me about immediately, and something to repeat very probably until death us do part when telling people about our first meeting.

Sometimes I think about the what-ifs, and so many of my what-ifs are wishing the past were different. My what-ifs are anxiety driven.

But recently I read this thing that said something like, "What if everything works out?" 

And sometimes, like 17 years ago tonight, when I wasn't exactly on time, but was barely late, and you were already sitting on a sofa drinking a beer—which, let's be honest, is not a hardship at the Tabard Inn—things do in fact work out.

Seventeen years ago tonight, we'd been working in offices about five blocks apart for a couple years, and yet we'd never bumped into each other in a coffee shop or lunch place, or on the street corner waiting for a light. 

In a movie, we'd have done one of those things.

But in real life, we were both on the Internet, and this night, November 13th, worked for both of us. And once my glasses cleared, I spotted you, and you stood up, and I put small hand into your big one, that was that.

And I've never looked back. 

Love,

Lisa