Good Company

When I lived in Newport News, Virginia, I discovered the Noland Trail. It is a beautiful 5-mile trail that winds around the Mariner's Museum. While walking, it is difficult to believe you are not miles away in a countryside. The entrance to the trail is marked by a stone inscribed with the following quote:

Today I have grown taller from walking with the trees.

Sounds like something Emerson or Thoreau would say, huh? Nope. A poet named Karle Wilson Baker penned it. It's from a poem called "Good Company". The line always resonated with me. I could almost believe that when I emerged at the end of the trail, I was indeed taller. Perhaps I was, in spirit at least.

I suffer from depression. I have since my mid to late 20's. I may always. I seem to average at least one major depressive episode a year. I'm likely on the bipolar spectrum, but I don't quite fit neatly into any category. I wonder if anyone really does?

I've tasked myself with keeping a blog about it. I have always loved to write and used to dream about being a writer. But as happens with many of us, dreams fall by the side of the road as we move through the drudgery of life. Nonetheless, I find writing very healing and perhaps it will help me make it through this latest episode,

When I'm in it, it never feels like it is going to end. It always does, of course, but the problem is it also always comes back, I am not sure I want to keep living with this in my future year after year. It doesn't feel like the times I am not depressed come close to making the times I am bearable. I would, bluntly put, rather die than keep living this cycle.

Perhaps, somehow, this blog will help me grow taller, as the trees do.