Poetry Update and Spirit Sickness

So I think Poetry Month was a resounding success.  While I didn't write a poem or a "poem" daily, I did think or work on something related to poetry every day in April and reaffirmed a commitment to it by the end to where I'm feeling more energized about it.

Unfortunately, that is just about the only thing I'm jazzed about, the only thing I want to do at all, except when I'm home and maybe gardening.  It was a hard week.  I have big stacks of grading that haven't gotten done because when I go home, I'm exhausted.  I can't pull a whole other shift of grading.  I need to rest.  Not that I go home and rest because we also have a home life.  Just getting through the day is difficult enough.  When I'm done for the day, I just want to lay my head down and go to sleep, not drive home and then pay attention and be active in home life.  I'm exhausted.  I really just want to go to bed for a day.  I dream about going to a hotel for a week and being left alone and sleeping an awful lot and eating nice room service and reading books.  An alternative to that might be an in-patient situation but I doubt it because I think the mentally ill typically don't receive quality treatment in this country, made all the more plain by today's dreadful vote for a "healthcare" bill that disenfranchises a number of people in my family because of pre-existing conditions, myself included (for multiple).  It's bullshit.  But I digress. 

I hate being sick, and I don't like being in my own head when I'm sick and hate myself like this, and I hate worrying others because I don't have a brain in my head.  I dream about going on short-term disability, but I won't.  But I'd like to.  Some days I feel good, like the medication is working, and I'm on the mend.  Other days I'm an idiot and my thinking is messed up or I forget something I am supposed to be responsible for -- in short, I fuck up in some way that feels epic.  I can't trust myself (not like I'm going to hurt myself or others, but like I'm just stupid and don't look around or think things through, like some part of me is just not there and that's true because I'm medicated right now and being medicated is not quite being your regular self), and that's really uncomfortable.  That's when you'd like to be able to stay in a nice safe space, like your home, preferably your bed.  I often think the real cure for me is to stay under the covers until I get good and sick of it and come out of my own accord.  But that is the problem of modern life; we can't do what we need to for our spirit.  And that's what depression is, or at least my depression is:  spirit sickness.  This depression is a big giant wakeup call, the one ironically I thought I wanted when I was listless and trying to figure out what I should do with myself:  you can't keep doing what you're doing.  We must make a change.  If only knowing that you're doing good in the world were enough to make you happy.  Damn.