Years ago, I discovered the hilarious wonder that is Allie Brosh and her blog, Hyperbole and a Half. On a regular basis, I got to enjoy her brand of ridiculousness (“Clean ALL the things!”). I knew she battled depression, but she seemed to manage it at least to a level of being a functional adult. But then she disappeared. Not literally, but internet-wise. No more posts. She wasn’t commenting on other blogs. People who knew her only through the internet were worried and didn’t know how she was doing. She had posted a blog entry entitled “Adventures in Depression,” so most people knew she was spending her time trying to take care of herself rather than entertain the masses. But we still worried.

A year and a half later, yesterday, she resurfaced, posting a preliminary “hey I’m back” post called “Pre-Post Transition Post.” It was a heads up that she would have a longer post with more content today. Her sense of humor was in full force for this one (yay airplanes!), and I got very anxious to read today’s post, which was supposed to explain where she’s been.

Yup. Today’s post, “Depression Part Two,” explained it. She was exactly where I thought she was, coping with life, being depressed. I’ve been fortunate enough that my few bouts with depression were comparatively short lived (weeks or months). But Allie’s been dealing with a long, more dangerous round of it. Not just to the “I don’t care about anything” and “I don’t know how to have emotions anymore” points, but to the point of wanting to die.

This brought me back to the days before we checked Rory into the hospital earlier this year. Fortunately, he managed to communicate just enough to me to help get him to the hospital before he did anything. And I’m pretty sure it was very difficult for him to tell me (actually, I know it was, because he was much farther down that path than he had originally communicated to me—I learned in the hospital that he’d made several plans already, and he had shared more of his darker thoughts). But I’m very glad he did. It looks like Allie, too, managed to muster the courage to tell people, and to get herself to a doctor. And she is now finally at the point where she could put something together for her blog, for us, and I’m guessing mostly herself.

So many people out there live with depression every day. It’s a particularly difficult challenge because it’s hard or impossible for other people to do anything to help. But I’m glad she went to the doctor, and subsequently found her shriveled piece of corn.

Every once in a while, it all comes to a head. The house gets so cluttered and chaotic that we all kind of just go, “Ahhh!” and go on a cleaning and organizing rampage. (All but my son, who really, really hates such things. We make him help, dragging him along, metaphorically kicking and screaming.) We’ve hit one of those points. Rory, my daughter, and I are all going nuts. At least for Rory and me, our feelings were capped off by housesitting for some friends. Their house is not only incredibly neat and tidy, but completely uncluttered. Everything in their house has somewhere to go when it’s time to put it away. This is the key that’s always been missing from my life.

A place for everything and everything in its place.

I find it’s best to focus on one area at a time, getting it as clean as possible before moving on. That way you feel like you’ve made some progress. But that’s not possible in our case, because we’ve had multiple top priorities.

I’ve had to focus on clearing off my desk. See, it’s not actually my desk. It’s my ex-husband’s desk. It’s a very nice desk. Wood. Roll-top. Lots of cubbies. But he’s been letting me use it since he hasn’t had room for it at his place. Until now. So I’ve started performing domestic archeology (thanks to my paternal grandmother for that term—she was the queen of keeping everything). I’ve found things that were missing, and plenty of stuff that I could have gotten rid of months ago. It seems to have been about a year since I last cleaned off my desk properly.

My daughter is turning twelve later this month. My son just turned nine. It’s time my daughter had her own room. With a door. We have a weird house, and their “bedroom” has been an open area that has doubled as the catch-all room. It’s large, but it’s also very full of… stuff. We have a small room that can and will be hers, but it requires moving a little bit over here, a little bit over there, because we don’t have enough unoccupied space to clear any one area all at once. So we’re digging through boxes, through layers, both literal layers of things and layers of time. Unearting toys long forgotten, drawings long ago drawn. We’re mostly tackling the children’s things, but there are plenty of mine to deal with as well. It’s hard to part with things that I like, or that I need occasionally. But it has to be done, and Rory’s here to help us all make some good choices.

We also have all kinds of regular organizational challenges. With two adult sewers/crafters in the house, our projects have taken over the main floor. We have too many board games (is there such a thing?). There are random piles of stuff everywhere in the house. But my daughter has requested her bed be moved by her birthday, so that, along with the desk clearing-off, is top priority. Crafts, games, and random piles will have to wait. My daughter rarely asks for anything, so I want to make this happen for her. She deserves to have a clean space that’s hers. We all do.

I’ll admit it. I’m a bit of a control freak. I like to do things my way. I like to be around my own things and around people who make me comfortable. I like to know what to expect from situations. Sure, I like variety and surprises as well. They keep life interesting and keep me growing as a person. But I’m used to these things happening as a slow pace. A little bit here, a little bit there, in between the comfortable box I’ve always inhabited when given the choice. I have usually been quite happy to live inside my little box most of the time, venturing out for new experiences, safely retreating back to re-center myself and feel at home.

Enter Rory. He lives in a very different box from mine. He has pulled me out of my box so often and for so many different reasons that my box has expanded. Perhaps with every pull, the walls stretch a little bit. He has also shown me some of his box, trusting me like he’s trusted almost no one else. And sometimes he hangs out with me in my box, gladly inhabiting the world that is familiar to me, and he is learning to be comfortable there. We all need time to process new experiences.

Our boxes are gradually overlapping more, as we make our life together. Taking on each others’ interests, forming new ones together, and adjusting ourselves ever so slightly to accommodate the other.

Rory has taught me about so much that was entirely outside my realm of experience. My family and upbringing are so different from his. And those of my friends are/were much more like mine. A lot of what I’ve seen and learned has been new to me.

My world is larger now. Thanks, Rory, for being my benevolent guide and for not giving me more than I could handle.

Rory should get released today, and so I’ll likely be busy with him for the next few days. Maybe we’ll be playing WoW together instead of just me alone this time!

I knew this would happen. But I was barely home yesterday. Woke up in the morning, got ready for the day, and immediately headed out to a day of SCA fun (and lots of ambush crying… all of this holding-it-all-together is catching up to me), and I didn’t get home until about 2:30am. So… No time for blogging.

This will serve for yesterday, and I’ll make an effort to get something with more content up later today.

I did actually write the first two letters for A Month of Letters, though. The first to Rory (which I get to hand deliver, so it’s cheating in a way), and the second to Mary Robinette Kowal herself, starter of A Month of Letters, author, and generally awesome gal. I’ll stick that one in the mail today, because tomorrow will be busy for other reasons.

So, this just serves as an update. It’s going to have to count. Don’t be surprised if February contains many such boring updates. Trying to establish a habit here, not write a masterpiece!

Yeah, you could say that I’ve been under some stress lately. I anticipate a post-stress migraine any day now. But I guess the stress has to go away first. Please check out my latest guest post on Rory’s blog, Terminally Intelligent, to learn more.

I keep coming back to this little video, over and over. It means different things to me at different times, but it always makes me happy, or hopeful, or motivated. I want to share it with you all. Go watch it now. It is 3 minutes 15 seconds well-spent.

(Plus I keep losing it and have to delve deeply into my memory for the proper keywords to type into Google—”elephant stop motion video boat” doesn’t work.)

This year I want to piggyback a new habit onto this letter writing drive. I want to write a post to this blog every actual day in February. That will be more posts than letters, since the Postal Service doesn’t run on Sundays or on President’s Day, but the internet never sleeps.

How long does it take to establish a new habit? Six weeks? Then this will get me 2/3 of the way there, because I’d really like to get to the point where I’m writing on my blog almost every day.

I won’t beat myself up if I don’t make it, though, as I do have something particular going on during the month that might force me to skip a few days if I don’t have time to prepare. But this post serves as establishing my intention.