Out of the maze

[vaneramos]

Visiting the shrink yesterday, I learned she plans to retire next summer. Just my luck: it took a decade to find a psychiatrist who was half-competent and not abusive, and within less than two years I will lose her. Not that she's a perfect fit—talk therapy isn't her focus—but at least she helped identify a suitable medication, and she is professional, empathetic and reassuring, and frequently offers useful advice. Yesterday she expressed more interest in my creative endeavours than the job search, which surprised and ingratiated me. It has been hard to find a doctor who believes me when I say writing is the most important thing I do for myself.

And it's not that I always depend on her—for half the year I only see her once every two or three months—but at times like this I like to check in once a month, just to keep on track. So I hope she manages to sell her practice, or at least refer me to someone of similar quality. It could be an opportunity to find someone better, but I'm dubious. She is practically the only shrink in private practice in Guelph, and I haven't heard any other recommendations. I don't want to fall back into the situation of relying on my GP, who has been excellent in all other regards, but useless with respect to mental health.

Yesterday was rough. I had the strong impression my mind was a maze, and I was a rat stuck into it. The walls are long and featureless. Sometimes I come to a junction, with no clue which way to turn except from experience, which gives me the vague feeling I've been here and made the same mistakes before. I don't even know where I'm going.

One thing has changed for the better. The volunteer work imposes some structure on my time, in fact it lifts me right out of the maze.

I worked an extra shift at OOTS last night, and with different people. Dave dropped in, a longtime friend and colleague who helped launch the library. Afterwards he gave me a great compliment, expressing how competent I am at following through with library procedures. He said he intends to mention this to the collective, the volunteer group that manages the library. I'm in my element there, and apparently it shows. This startles me. I have not had a job I enjoyed this much before, or where I received appreciative remarks from co-workers.

And I can even do it when I feel depressed, because working in that environment with those people lifts my mood, and I look forward to it. This feeling is unfamiliar to me: to know clearly what is expected of me and not feel overwhelmed by it.

We had heard the Rude Native is hosting a queer bar night on Thursdays, so after closing, Dave and I went out for a drink and chatted about life until two other acquaintances arrived at 10. Hardly anyone else came out, but I left at 11:30 happy and invigorated.

I had to scrape ice off the car. I won't talk about that, or the snow that caused whiteouts yesterday and persisted to this morning. Other friends across Southwestern Ontario blogged about it with various degrees of cheerfulness, but it didn't hit me that way. It doesn't help that my new camera is unavailable. Regardless of the weather, my mood had lifted by the time I came home.

It has persisted into today. Hopefully I have turned that corner. I suspect the light box is helping, as did thoughtful notes received Wednesday evening from ghostsandrobots and zombietruckstop. I'm ready for a weekend without commitments, time to dedicate to my own projects. I plan to take my notebook out somewhere later this afternoon and work on the novel for a while.

I found this bracket fungus on a stump beside our neighbour's deck at the cottage. I was intrigued by the intricate pattern of dark indentations on its surface, which looked like fingerprints from a distance, perhaps left by Joyce's tiny grandson, Mac. On closer inspection they weren't fingerprints, but I don't know what. They could be tiny teeth marks, as if a squirrel tried laboriously to gnaw off a mouthful. The second photo behind the cut gives more context for the first one.