HADA 2015: Days 19-26

So, a whole week has slipped by since I last wrote about my HADA progress. In that week, I think I probably put in my seven hours, in fits and starts, and a few marathons. I wrote a dozen blog posts in my head, but never sat down to actually type them up, because the bad days sounded like making excuses, and the good days sounded like celebrating mediocrity.

Depression really sucks. It minimizes your successes, and magnifies your failures.

I promised myself I would write something today. And maybe I will get around to saying something about HADA in a little bit, but right now, I want to share two images of my mental/emotional state right now.

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Image One:

I am a rock, on the floor of a cavern. Above me, there is slow, but steady, drip. Each drop hits me in the exact same place, and that place is being slowly carved out by the endless series of drips. Whenever I cry for help, I feel silly asking, because it's just a drip. One drop of water doesn't hurt. And whenever help comes, I am ashamed at how easy it is for others to bear the weight of that drip, and I am grateful for the reprieve, but eventually, my help moves on, and the drip resumes its slow burrowing into my core.

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Image Two:

I am swimming across a river with a strong current. I am swimming as hard as I can, but it doesn't look like I'm getting anywhere. I want to stop and rest for a moment, to get my bearings, and check my progress, but if I stop swimming for even a moment, I know the current will carry me away. So I keep on swimming, and pray that the direction I am heading is still the right one, because I can't afford to stop.

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At least once this week, I got caught up on dishes. And then I got behind again. I baked bread with the kids at least once, and I got fast food for lunch at least once. I tackled several clutter hot spots, and ended up with a clean front hall, a mostly-clean laundry room, a clear path to the basement, and a place to put all of the things I have been tripping over in the kitchen for weeks. Meanwhile, I lost the battle with the living room, the kid's room, and the guest room. I deep-cleaned the bathroom and half-cleaned the upstairs hallway. I organized about half of my Girl Scout supplies, and I started the process of retiring the winter clothes for the season. I weeded one section of the garden, but still need to till my new garden bed, so I can transplant the seedlings we started. But I forgot to water the seedlings a few times, and I'm not sure how many of them will survive until the transplant, anyhow. This past weekend was my only non-busy weekend until July, and I blinked once, and it was over, with my to-do list barely touched. Jeremy just went on a three-day business trip, and he didn't mow the lawn before he left, so I need to find the time to do that, now, too, with the kids underfoot. I got some groceries, but I'm still not sure what I'm making for dinner tonight. We missed the bus this morning, then the car wouldn't start. Drip drip drip.

I did take some pictures of my progress, on one of the "good" days. I forgot to take "before" pictures, so these pictures will only be impressive to those of you who have been to my house and know what my "normal" looks like.

Front hall:

From HADA 2015

Path to basement door: (This space was knee-deep with clutter all the way to the door, so that I couldn't even open the door without moving at least two boxes.)

From HADA 2015

Do you ever get home from grocery shopping, put away all of the perishables, but then leave the non-perishables in bags to "get to later"? This is the space where I leave those bags. It had bags going back almost a month.

From HADA 2015

John Wallace helping with the dishes during one of the brief times when I was caught up enough to include the kids:

From HADA 2015

April is almost over, and, at the moment, I am not overly optimistic about the progress I might make over the next few days, but I figured I could at least post an update today, so that I have a clean slate for my next blog post, with a bit less baggage.