Am I too blue for you?

I've been in a bit of a funk lately.

I've let the house become a mess again (although it's still manageable). I'm dining on garbage. I've found myself spending most of my free time sitting in front of the television, often dozing off and waking up hours later.

I occasionally find the motivation to break up this cycle, (Saturday morning, I went for a short hike) but soon find myself in front of the television again eating junk food.

And I look at myself and I'm pretty grossed out. It is so lame to complain about how fat you are, but I can barely recognize myself. And when I feel so ugly, I am less interested in being intimate with Husband. So, this little rut I've found myself in is affecting my relationships as well.

What got me here? That's what I'm asking myself. Sometimes I think that I'm just overstressed at work. Maybe it has to do with how infrequently I see my friends. On a more melodramatic level, it may have to do with my recent inability to have any faith or belief in God or any kind of divinity. I don't want to say that I feel hopeless, but the feeling that there is no
"higher power," is a pretty hopeless notion.

I've been in this sort of place before, and I don't expect it to last long. I booked a weekend retreat at a nearby ashram with the hopes that it will be rejuvenating. I've also got a date with a dear friend to have coffee in a week or so. If you're reading this and you want to help, you can invite me out for a drink or a walk or a bite to eat. If you're reading this and you know God, tell him to pay me a visit.

I hope this doesn't sound terribly melancholy. As I'm reading back over it, I see that I sound pretty emo. As far as blue spells go, this one is pretty mild. But I could use a friend to get me off the couch and out into the sunshine.

The Day After Election Day

My candidate won. Immediately after hearing the news, I was elated.

. . .but my elation quickly became tempered by my some of my fellow citizens' and friends' reactions.

Obviously everyone does not agree about the candidates, otherwise we wouldn't need to hold elections. But what I didn't expect was the bitterness and alienation that appears to be felt by my friends who supported the losing candidate. Did I feel that way after the 2004 election when my hopes of an end to the Bush Administration, and along with it an end to the Iraq War, were dashed?

I don't think I did.

At the time, it seems like I was able to commiserate with other John Kerry supporters in our mutual discontent about the Bush Administration. It felt like there were so many of us, and we weren't quite sure how we lost.

I guess this time there actually are many of us--enough to successfully elect our candidate. Perhaps the supporters of John McCain do not feel as numerous as Kerry supporters did in 2004. It also may be that most of my friends are in the 18-30 demographic that so heartily turned out for Barack; and that the few of us young people who were on the other side of the aisle are feeling like outcasts.

I did not expect this to be such a divisive day. Shouldn't we, the winning party, be able to celebrate without regard to the downcast faces of the losers? After all, after eight years of Republican rule, isn't it our turn?