Fighting Tiger

I feel frustrated that when I do write on battlecat these days it’s to share the darker side of life. My last posts were on anxiety and of past weeks, while  luckily I’ve been less anxious I find myself more depressed than anything. I tend to hide at home and feel like there’s not much point to a lot of the things that make up life.

It’s not that I’m like this all the time, and luckily it’s not scary depression. However it is the kind of depression that stops me from easily doing [new] things or finding much joy in anything. When you’re relatively freshly moved to a place and in the search for work, most things are new. Glory, it does seem easier to sleep and hide at home and knit rather than push through this layer of bleurgh to be more me than I’m letting myself be.

Rationally I can tell that there’s a layer of depression weighing down on me and it’s clouding my interpretation of the world and my relationship with the world. The world, I know, is weird, but generally fantastic and there are many good things in my life.

Tim for example is more than good and supports me in so many ways. I’m seeing a therapist who is interesting and helpful. I’m really glad to be finally living in Linz, and I enjoy the size of a smaller city (200,000) after the last years in Berlin. I’m meeting lovely new people here and take my knitting out to the local Stitch and Bitch.  And luckily on those hide at home days, there is knitting while watching Six Feet Under. And at least if I’m knitting I’m still doing something while I hide at home and Six Feet Under is a fitting accompaniment to both knitting and the blues.

In a couple of months Tim and I will be in Australia getting married and enjoying the summer and building boats. There is so much to be happy and joyful about, but it’s so incredibly frustrating that a forcefield of inertia is preventing me from actively engaging with my life to the full extent possible.

Anyway. More than writing about depression I wanted to share a detail photo of my grandmother’s wedding dress.

I think that modifying this dress will be the most intimidating thing about getting married to Tim – he’s great just the way he is and I’m so happy to have him in my life.

The dress is almost 80 years old and feels very vulnerable – I’m a little afraid to take it from being my grandmother’s wedding dress to mine and am thinking about having a second dress available to change into after the more formal bits of the ceremony.  I’m slowly working up the courage to tidy up the hem and shorten the sleeves in preparation for an Australian January wedding. Wish me luck!