I admit that it's probably not the smartest thing for a depressed and overworked person to decide to take on an intense challenge like NaPoWriMo. Partly, that's my ornery nature that leads me to not be the sad kind of depression, but to have agitated depression, which I've been meaning to write a post about but have been grading instead. So here's the short version, which is probably a blessing: although I am sometimes just lethargic and/or sad or have no feeling at all, most of the time I am irritable, agitated, or just plain pissed off, sometimes actually screaming. (I know, people who know me in real life are thinking -- well, how can we tell the difference between this and the way she is normally? Yes, yes. It turns out, it's an illness, not just general bitchiness.) Basically, it's like this. Those of you who know about how bad perimenopausal PMS is, where it turns into PMDD and you're sure every single thing in your life is veined with irremediable wrongness and rottedness to it -- from your marriage to your job to your child -- your fault, of course. Everything is deeply deeply wrong. I call these black moods (though I realize that sucks from a racial point of view and have been trying to come up with some better descriptor). That's what agitated depression feels like all the time until you realize that you're the problem and then when you feel full of badness and craziness all all uncontrolled and loose inside you all at the same time, that's when you want most to cry and go to bed.
And instead of me being alternately bitchy and helpless, I am taking sertraline, which also might be giving me delusions of grandeur about how much energy I should have or maybe one day will have. I definitely feel more productive and analytical, which is why I should focus on NaPoWriMo, because it's more difficult to get more creative and, if I am taking prescription drugs, I should at least get good things out of it like creativity. Partly, though, this is from the example of JaneB over at Now, what was I doing? who has done NaNoWriMo so many times! I don't know how she does it! But I'm going to try to figure that out this month. Anyway, I figure if I end up writing a "poem" half the time I intend to and then half of those end up worth looking at again, then that's a ton of work, actually most of what I'd intended to do in a year. I'll just start and see what happens.
But now I am letting blogging get in the way of getting me to write a "poem" which I need to do before I get onto my syllabi for the next quarter. Need to hop to!
And no, I won't be posting my "poems." Just no.
You're welcome.
