Joy, Depression, and a Dog Named Panda

Joy. Interesting word. When I say it in my mind these days, I don't feel it. I feel cold, blank. I remember what it feels like, vaguely. To be so totally immersed in something. To feel a complete happiness and excitement. To feel inspired and alive.
For someone with chronic depression, it isn't an easy thing to find. I don't remember the last time. That's a bad sign. Maybe for a few minutes a couple months ago when I got a little stoned for the first time in years and was playing music. I forgot myself. I forgot everything else except the music and I felt joy. Is that what it is? Just a total immersion into something?
Yes, I do take medication. I don't exercise much these days and I know if I did it would help. But that's the tricky part about depression. You KNOW all the things that could possibly help your situation but you are DEPRESSED so you just don't care enough to do anything about it.
I have battled with this disease, (and it took me a very long time to even admit that it is a disease and not just some terrible character flaw I was born with)... off and on, for about twenty or more years. If I think back, there were probably some episodes even before that. So I don't think it's hormonal.
But I didn't really want this post to be about that. It's just the back story. This post is about joy. Where I find it. Right now the biggest joy in my life is a little fluff ball named Panda Maurice. I never imagined I could be so in love with a four legged creature, but here I am. I've had plenty of dogs in my life. All of them big. Some of them very sweet. My last dog, Jazz, was a case and a half! Lab/Chesapeake/Husky mix. An alpha female all the way... that finally after several years, I gave up battling with. We constantly butted heads. She was just too much for me and we never really connected. She was not especially a people pleaser. I think, honestly I was more relieved than sad when I finally had to put her down at fifteen. I hate to admit that, but it's true.
Panda is quite another story. Of course as a puppy, he was/is still quite cute. He is a purebread Pembroke Welsh Corgi. Not a dog I probably ever would have chosen. I'm never been a small dog lover. In my experience they bark too much, are too excitable, too needy. Besides in my earlier days, I not only needed a companion dog but a dog that might be more on the protective side or at least a deterrent. I did a lot of hitchhiking hiking and traveling by myself.
Panda is different. He aims to please. We connect. He seems special somehow in a way that I find hard to explain. He's very sensitive. He listens. He really does. Just one small example: The other evening I was feeling pretty down. I was sitting on the couch with him watching Fried Green Tomatoes, a movie that always makes me cry. Panda was perched up on the back arm of the couch. (He is a bit cat-like and likes to climb things.) Minutes after I started sniffling, he climbed down off his perch with no prompting, came over and looked up at me and started licking my face. Now maybe this isn't strange for most dogs but none of my other dogs did it. Especially Jazz who would barely look me in the eye at close range, let alone ever "kiss" me... even when I asked her to.
Panda is smart. He is very quiet. He rarely barks. He's happy to just be with you much of the time, watching or snuggling. He watches tv with us. He is totally enthusiastic about life. I know most puppies are, but watching him just makes my heart smile. When he is at the river or the park with me he runs and jumps and tears around in a figure eight pattern, throws things up in the air for himself, splashes in the water... and it looks like he has the biggest grin on his face the whole time. He looks at me as if to say, "Why aren't you enjoying this as much as me?!" I do, when I look at him. It's that child-like quality of pure involvement in the moment, that I miss. Too much going on in my brain these days I suppose. He reminds me what it's like and it warms my heart. It also makes me sad at times, that I seem to have lost it.
To say that I feel protective of this little guy is an understatement. He wants everyone to be his friend. Big dogs, little dogs, cats, humans, he's excited to meet and to know everyone. This has been to his detriment a few times, as he was attacked before he knew about rolling over and playing submissive. Yesterday a big black dog came rushing up to us at the beach. I yelled at him and he stopped and then his owners called him back. I was totally ready to kick some black dog ass. This urge of pure adrenaline just came over me and I got mad as hell. Panda is so innocent and so loving. I feel it's my job to protect him at all costs. Maybe that's just the "mother" in me.
Back to the joy issue. There are a few things that still give me great joy. One is a road trip or travel of any kind. I don't know why. It's just always been such a freeing experience for me. Especially the times when I didn't necessarily have a set destination or time line in mind. I miss that with all my heart. I feel stuck at the present time mostly due to finances. Next thing that gives me joy is communication with a few close friends who I feel really know the art of listening. Thirdly, getting out of town. (Yes, this is part of the travel joy, but also it's just being able to have a rural landscape more accessible to me. I don't right now. I live in the city and it's becoming more and more frustrating, no not frustrating irritating, to drive and drive and drive and still not be able to get away from the noise, the cars, the people and find a quiet and beautiful place in nature where I find inspiration to photograph or write. I NEED that in my life. I don't just want it. It's a necessary thing for me. It makes me happy to look out my window and see wide open spaces. "A room with a view." I need to live someplace where I can breathe. THAT gives me joy. A flower garden gives me joy. Horses give me joy. Mountains and open places give me joy. Wild thunderstorms give me joy. Music gives me joy.
There is no conclusion to this post. Just that I need to cultivate a little more joy in my life, and a lot less sadness. It's work. It wasn't always work. It doesn't seem as difficult with Panda around.

Waiting for Life to Happen

Ok, so I've been waiting and waiting to make a first entry into this blog. Waiting for some travel to happen in my life so I can write about it. I don't travel around as much these days. Financial reasons. I thought about it this morning and decided this blog can be about inward journeys as well. I mean, who is going to read it anyway? I realize the inner workings of my sometimes paranoid, sometimes depressed soul will not be that interesting to most.
I travel. I travel every day in my mind. I am always dreaming that I'm a travel writer/photographer, getting paid to wander the world and see new things, write down my experiences and photograph them and actually get PAID to do that. It's a dream. I am amateur at both these things. I suppose I could just admit it and go on, but I still yearn to do them.
I am a cook. Sometimes called a "chef"... though no formal training. I have been a graphic designer, a merchandiser, a gas station attendant, a sales person, a janitor, a maid, a factory worker, a Production Assistant, Locations Assistant, and Set/Prop Assistant on feature films and commercial productions in Los Angeles, a horse and mule caretaker, a cooking instructor, a barista and coffee house manager, a musician/vocalist, and probably several other miscellaneous positions that I can't remember due to my aging brain cells.
I'm getting tired. My body is wearing out on me. I look down at my hands as I type, they look old. I want a more inward life right now. Yet I want to travel. I want escape but I want introspection. I want time. I want my time to be my own. I don't have enough of it left now.
I have relationship problems. I'm not happy. I'm not happy with my living situation. I want less noise, less traffic, less emotional upheaval all the time. I want some peace in my life. I want acceptance. I want love. Do you really think that's too much to ask?
I'm contemplating two paths at the moment. I'm thinking about taking one of those online programs to learn how to teach English in a foreign country. It seems one way I might afford more travel. Yet, I am 56 years old and never had kids. Do I really think I have the patience to TEACH???
Another option is to join a Travel Writers and Photographers group. Take classes. Learn from that, and just start. Since this is what I want to do in the first place and the teaching would just be a sidestep in some ways.... it sounds like the best option. And it also sounds like a dream. That I am just fooling myself one more time, that I could amount to something in this life.
It's hard for me to think of myself as anything but a loser...sometimes.
Then the old optimism pips up and I keep saying to myself, "Why not give it a try?" So this blog will be about that journey as well as any travels along the way. I'm not writing this with grammar or excellent writing in mind. It's a journal of thoughts, that's all. Wanderings from inside.