Photo by Ant Rozetsky on Unsplash
The snow was heavy, intense, and brief.
In less than an hour, it dropped an inch, which piled up mostly on parked cars. After I looked out once, I decided to look again before going to bed. The snow had already stopped. I’m not sure when the stars came out, but the morning dawned clear and crisp.
It was tolerable outdoors until the wind began to blow.
I cleared snow off the car, so I was ready to take my grandson to daycare. And when I returned to the house, I shoveled the dusting off the sidewalk. It took longer to find the shovel on the front porch than it did to do the shoveling.
It wasn’t really snow shoveling, it was more of a sweeping with a shovel.
The snow was dry and very light. It was easy to remove from the sidewalk and earlier, the roof of the car. Now that the sun is up above the houses, what snow is left on the sidewalk is disappearing. So, my chores are done for the morning. I am off duty now until 3;30 PM, when I head over to pick up my grandson. On Friday, his daycare closes at 4 PM, instead of 5 PM, which it does Monday to Thursday.
My wife and I have been in Boston since Tuesday and are staying until Next Monday.
We took an earlier flight Tuesday morning, hoping to land in Boston before the rain changed to all snow. Well, that was the forecast. In fact, the original forecast was for 8 to 12 inches of snow in the Boston area. As we landed, we saw rain outside of the jet’s window. And the 8 to 12 inches of snow turned out to be barely a dusting, sticking mostly to cold, grassy areas.
So, we didn’t need to switch to an earlier flight.
But switch we did, turning the night into a packing frenzy. I should have already packed, but I wasn’t. My suitcase was out, and I had set up my backpack to carry my laptop and I pad tablet. I write on the laptop and play solitaire on the tablet before I fall asleep. Almost missing socks, and several pairs of long pants, I packed my suitcase. In the end, I got less than 4 hours of sleep before we were up and heading to the airport.
The weather changed from rain to snow in Virginia as we boarded the plane.
Our jet ended up 15th in a que to be de-iced before take-off. Our 8:45 AM departure finally got off the ground at noon. We arrived in Boston about 1:30 PM. I never learned when our original flight landed or if it even flew. The important part for us is that we made it safely to Boston.
Even with two brief snowstorms in 3 days, I am relaxed and ready for the next thing.
My depression must not know where we are or what is happening. Normally, it would have figured out a way to challenge my thinking and to slow or completely interrupt my enjoyment of being in Boston. I get to visit with family and then spend 5 days caring for my 3 ½ year old grandson.
I am so grateful to be able to be here when needed.
This is one part of my plan that depression has not been able to disrupt. Counting back 22 months, we have flown to Boston 9 times. Nine times! That is a lot of quality time with my grandson. I want to make sure he knows who his grandpa is.
And it seems to me that he does.
So, I’m assuming that my depression is waiting for me back in Virginia. I can’t see that it packed a bag and that it made its way through the snow to Boston. The first full morning here, I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting to see my depression waving hello.
Now I am realizing that my depression isn’t here and hasn’t been here the entire trip.
I am very thankful for this. I hadn’t planned it this way. In fact, I just assumed that my depression was going along, even though it hadn’t checked a bag. Usually, my depression is “all up in my business,” (as they say). My depression never misses a chance to tag along just in case it can answer a question I might have.
My depression is also very adept at tossing out questions for me to consider.
Sometimes my depression feels like it’s an independent contractor. It feels like it gets paid for every idea it lobs in my direction. The more ideas it shares with me, the more it gets paid.
And my depression gets a killer bonus if I grab ahold of one of its ideas and run with it.
So, knowing how it works, I am still amazed that it’s not here somewhere. But at the same time, I am not sad that I am on my own. Having a break from my depression and its antics is genuinely nice. I can relax and not be anxious that things could go to heck in the next minute.
My depression and I are going to be together until the end, but that doesn’t mean we need to spend every minute of every day together.
And right now, we are not. I’m here and my depression is somewhere else. So, I am going to enjoy the remainder of my time in Boston and not think about what’s behind or in front of me. Being in the moment is what it’s all about now.
