Good Grief 26

Sometimes I just feel horrendous.
Sometimes it just brews like stewed tea and it stains everything.
It brewed yesterday when I finally managed to get out for this walk, cajoling myself and persuading myself, against the opinion of every cell in my body saying otherwise, that it would be A Good Thing (my life can feel like a depressive's version of '1066 and All That'). It was, I suppose ... it nudged me above the submerged level. A gulp of air before the next descent.
And then girding myself for work today,  yet again, when I slipped above and below the surface with the pervasive sense of the undertow beneath and then, as I could see the home straight ahead, I gradually sank to the bottom again.
The tea stain pervaded everything, and in a fit of desperation I got in the car and drove. A long way. I had something in mind to go to ... a talk, it didn't matter if I made it or not. I just needed to drive. It's one of those activities that seems to help a little. I remember that I wrote a short piece once about 'how to drive out of a layby' as a sort of allegorical piece about life and feeling stuck. Remarkably I made it to the talk and home again. To face another day ... I was going to write 'fight another day' but I have no fight left and I remember the words of Pema Chodron 'Start where you are'. I do try but sometimes each day is a mountain, a jungle, a desert, a raging sea and a swamp, all in one.