It might not seem like it given the amount of trip reports I’ve posted lately (at least I’ve been blogging!), but I am having serious problems motivating myself to go on hikes. Or runs. Or social events. Or just getting out of bed. I’m feeling incredibly lethargic, unhealthy and down in the dumps. Depression isn’t anything new to me, and I’ve come to realize that it’s probably something I am going to struggle with for the rest of my life, but I really want to be able to manage it at a level where I can take care of myself and my loved ones.

For me, depression comes and goes in waves. This happens to be one of the really low points, and I can’t really see the surf going up anytime soon. I’ve been looking back over the last couple of years to try to make sense of the ebb and flow of it all, and it seems to really be connected to physical activity. I can honestly say that hiking changed (and quite possibly saved) my life.

I just posted some photos of our recent trip to the Space Needle on Flickr, and I was struck by the difference in my appearance now and the last time we went. It was in the spring of 2007, one of the most difficult periods of my life. I remember how uncomfortable I felt in my body and in my life. I had migraines almost every day. I would always stay home while JK went out with our friends. I had no energy. I was deeply unhappy. Apart from the weight loss (it’s not even about the weight loss), I can see how much more confident, content and relaxed I am now. Hiking gave me exercise, sunshine, endorphins, fresh air, a sense of accomplishment, confidence in learning new skills, and a sense of purpose. So I’ve come a long way, but not far enough.

The last time I felt really energetic, confident and carefree over an extended period of time was in late May and June…which also just happens to coincide with a period where I was doing lots of hiking and, more importantly, lots of running on the non-hiking days. I really think this is key - hiking once or twice a week isn’t enough; I have to keep the endorphins going throughout the week.

For the month of September, I will be doing a little (well, for me it’s pretty big) experiment: I will exercise every single day to see how it affects my mental health. I’m trying to disregard the vague notion I have that this whole experiment is embarrassing to talk about, so I’ll be posting updates on the blog. I’ll try to keep the whining at a minimum, but considering the fact that I had to argue with myself for over an hour this morning to get out of bed, there’s bound to be some bitching and moaning when I try to force my carcass off the couch to go running in the rain.

So there you have it. 30 days of exercise, strenuous enough to get that magical rush of endorphins. There are so many changes I want to make in my life, but I think this first little step is the key to unlocking the rest of them. One foot in front of the other.

So we seem to have had a bit of a curse on our hiking life this month, which unfortunately coincided with what was to be my big 100 mile effort for the Hike-a-thon. First I was sick for a week, then I hurt my back (I still have no idea what I did and it’s still painful - I must be getting old), then JK got sick for over a week and here we are and the calendar says it’s September. I didn’t come anywhere close to reaching my goal, but I did pretty well considering all the setbacks.

Ok, so two weekends ago we were all set to go on a backpacking trip to Ptarmigan Ridge with a group of friends. I was concerned about my back, but the doctor said I could go if it was an easy trip (check), if I brought drugs (check check) and if I carried a light pack (check check check and huzzah) - so JK was my pack mule and carried all of the heavy stuff. I could get used to this kind of backpacking!

Unfortunately, one of our friends had hurt her foot the night before, so they were out. The curse struck again! JK and I set out alone with our two little trail pups and meandered around in the fog until we found a suitable campsite above the lake.

Even though the weather was less than stellar, we had a great time. It’s gorgeous up there even in the fog, my back felt pretty good and I was happy to be out and about with my little family again after being sick.

Bobby and Wellie were hard at work patrolling our campsite for rogue marmots and mountain goats:

The sun started burning through the clouds the next morning and made the lake look even prettier:

…and as we were hiking back to the car, the clouds lifted to reveal all the views we had missed the night before. So beautiful!!

Our original plan was to go on another backpacking trip that night, but JK had a fever and wasn’t feeling good and we had to drive back home with a measly 8 miles added to our Hike-a-thon mileage. At this point I realized I didn’t have a shot in hell at making my goal of 100 miles in August and was doing my best not to be stressed out about it.

After taking some deep breaths, I took in the view of Mount Shuksan in front of me and felt the taste of fresh huckleberries still on my tongue and realized how lucky I was to just be out there in the mountains. I’m disappointed about missing out on several of the big hikes and climbing trips we had planned for this summer, but I am not making the situation any better by being annoyed. Just because we’ve been “stuck” doing short and easy hikes, it doesn’t mean they’re worth less than the big trips. We’ve seen some very purdy scenery on those easy hikes!

I think a big part of my problem is that I feel like I wasted so many years being seriously depressed, and now I want to experience as much as I possibly can to catch up…so when I miss out on a planned trip, it feels devastating to me. I need to find a balance between being excited and being laid-back, between perfectionism and failure, between attachment and detachment. And most of all I need to just breathe and realize that we’ve only just begun.

(…and now I have The Carpenters stuck in my head.)

Depression isn’t something you just suddenly snap out of; for me it’s been more of a gradual awakening. For every week that goes by my head feels a little bit clearer, my soul a little bit lighter, and I am starting to feel like I really want to participate in the world again. I feel like I wasted age 18-25 and now I just want to make up for everything that I missed.

After years of not caring about much of anything at all, I’m trying to put the pieces of my life back together.

One of the big things for me is to make our little townhouse feel more like a home, so we’ve spent a lot of time over the last couple of weeks decluttering and organizing stuff. Now that I feel less cluttered as a person, I want our house to reflect that as well. Oh, and it would also be nice to be able to have people over without having to spend an hour cleaning first. Yeah…

Now that we have some progress in our living room, I decided to take some photos. The fact that I now keep the blinds on our windows completely open feels oddly significant (please stop me if I sound like a self-help book); I used to keep them shut all the time and just hide in my dark little cave.

I just got the new IKEA catalog in the mail and I think a shopping trip is in order (have I mentioned how much I hate shopping). I want to put a little bookshelf in the corner between the fireplace and the stairs to help contain the ever-growing mess that is my library – I’ve been good and very strict and am selling/donating all the books except my all-time favorites and the ones I know I am going to read again, but we still don’t have enough shelf space.

If we can fit it in our ridiculously narrow living room, I also want a comfy chair that would complete a circle around our coffee table. Now it just feels so tv-centric.

It feels so nice and light and airy in here now, I love it! My next project will have to be to make the bedroom feel the same way so we can wake up and feel good about ourselves every morning. Unfortunately this means going through the imposing mountain of ill-fitting clothes that is taking up all the space in my closet and sorting them for trash and donation. Bah!

As part of my big plan to fix all the little (and big!) things I have neglected in my life during the Great Depression, I had all four of my wisdom teeth extracted on Monday. Finally. I should have done this so many years ago, but I just kept putting it off. They have caused me quite a lot of annoyance and more than enough pain. The worst was when one of them got badly infected in India - man alive, that’s a situation I never want to be in again - and now they are finally gone. Huzzah!

Unfortunately I will have to endure another week or so of discomfort until my mouth is happy again and I stop looking like a greedy hamster, but at least I have drugs, ice cream and books galore.

In the meantime, here are some layouts from last year. I love this first one; it perfectly sums up our summer:

..and this one is somewhat bittersweet, about our oh so cute niece and nephew and how sad it is that we live so far away from them the rest of our family as well.

This is a layout I made last summer for Computer Tricks for Scrapbooking 3, raving about wanting to really tackle my fear of heights. This winter I decided that since I had reached the point where I could walk along a cliff or hang around at the top of the rock wall in the gym, I was ready to take a mountaineering class. Hah.

Last weekend our class went to Spire Rock, an outside rock climbing wall about an hour south of Seattle, and it became painfully obvious that I wasn’t ready after all. As it turns out, climbing on smooth, worn, mossy rock outside while wearing stiff mountaineering boots is 374 (approximately) times as terrifying as climbing inside with rock shoes that will stick to anything and huge, luxurious hand holds. When it was time to try rappelling, I couldn’t even take the first step off the “cliff”. I just had this vision in my head that my foot would slip and I would bang into the wall.

I spent all week trying to prepare (both mentally and physically) for our next outing to Spire. The first thing I did when we got there was get up on that rock, set up my rappel, take the first step…and then slip and bang straight into the rock. I rappelled down (rappelling itself is fun; it’s just that nothing in my mind or body wants to take that first step) and got right back on the horse…and slipped again, really banging into the rock again (my knee is still swollen, magnificently multi-colored and painful as all hell when I bend it, whine whine whine).

The rock was ridiculously slick from being marinated in a couple of days of rain, so people kept slipping and sliding and flipping over all day, but it was over for me. I can’t join the class for the climbs if I am that uncomfortable on rock. Lame.

I’m trying very hard not to dwell on the fact that I failed at something yet again, and that it is ok that I’m scared of heights. It’s not something that absolutely needs to be fixed, and there is a lifetime of non-sphincter tightening hiking to be had in Washington. But as much as the heights bother me, I think what really screwed things up for me this time was trying to learn this stuff in a large group of people where I felt like I could never measure up. And that’s really not good.

Number one lesson learned from the class - I have the self-esteem of a (really really insecure) gnat. And I don’t know where to even begin to fix it.

Just like last February, I’m going through the winter blues. Bah. I’m having trouble sleeping, I wake up with no energy at all, and then get frustrated because there are so many changes I want to make in my life but it’s so overwhelming that I don’t know where to start. I know I am being too hard on myself and some of the things I am disappointed with are way beyond my control.

For now I’m staying focused on training for various mountain adventures we will hopefully be able to go on this year. This involves huffing and puffing up steep hills with a 30-50 lb pack on my back, and more cardio in the gym. I’m learning to enjoy running. I feel like mountains and exercise are the only things that are keeping me sane right now. Maybe we’ll have to consider a sunny vacation this spring after all, if we can afford it. It certainly helped last year.

On Tuesday we joined Mark and some of his colleagues for a Dawn Patrol to Rattlesnake Ledge. In order to see the sunrise, we had to get up at 4:30 AM, drive to North Bend and hike up in the dark - but it’s always worth it. Even when I have to do it on less than two hours of sleep.

Next week we’re going to try to get up early (sleep or no sleep) to meet Carlos at the gym before work instead of doing it at night. It’s going to be absolutely brutal those first days but I’m hoping it will eventually help my sleeping habits and energy level. Now that I’ve outed our plans here, hopefully I’ll feel like I have to do it.

I know it’s a cliché , but the serenity prayer feels very appropriate these days.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

If that fails there’s always Serenity Now…

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? I was named after my paternal grandmother, Ingrid.

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? Last night while watching Sicko… I urge everyone who reads this to go see it!

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? I haaaate my handwriting! I only use it on layouts when I’m too lazy to use the computer, ahem.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE LUNCH MEAT? I don’t eat meat and I’ve never liked sandwiches, so I’m at a loss here. Can I answer “potatoes”? :D

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS? Unless you count the four-legged slightly furry kind, none.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? Hmm. Hmmm. If I weren’t so antisocial, then yes! ;)

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT? Neeeever.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? Last I checked they were still hanging in there!

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? Yes. Possibly. Maybe. But I refuse to let my husband do it!

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE CEREAL? Kashi something-or-other with freeze-dried strawberries. Yes, I’m too lazy to go check the name.

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? I kick them off. Actually, most of my shoes don’t even have laces.

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? I used to be really strong (in my weightlifting days :D), but now I’m pretty noodly.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE ICE CREAM? Soy Delicious Double Chocolate (or whatever it’s called).

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? I hate to sound new agey, but the first thing I notice is someone’s vibe, like if they’re guarded or open or hostile, etc. I’m weird.

15. RED OR PINK? Pink. I don’t know why, but I’ve never ever liked red.

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVOURITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? Low self-esteem :(

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? Right now, it’s my sister-in-law. It was so much fun to have her here for Christmas, so she needs to come back and entertain me!

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU? What?? Oh, was this originally an email-thing?

19. WHAT COLOUR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? Uhm, I just came out the shower so I’m not wearing shoes (never wear shoes inside anyway (why do Americans do this when they’re so scared of germs and dirt by the way?)) and my “pants” are baby blue pj shorts.

20. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? A nectarine.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? Some bad 80s song on The Tube Music Network. Now it changed to Arctic Monkeys.

22. IF YOU WHERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOUR WOULD YOU BE? Chartreuse!

23. FAVOURITE SMELLS? Fresh cilantro (summer) and cloves (winter)

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? The hubs

25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? Of course; she’s a scrapbooker! ;)

26. FAVOURITE SPORTS TO WATCH? Unless it’s Norwegian handball or there’s a Seahawks/alcohol-thing going on, I never watch sports.

27.HAIR COLOUR? Boring brown.

28. EYE COLOUR? Blue.

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? Yup, or glasses.

30. FAVOURITE FOOD? Baingan bharta or green curry with tofu. And potatoes of course :D

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? Scary movies about young’uns being stranded in the middle of nowhere and hunted by a) inbreds b) someone who looks inbred.

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? Sicko, last night.

33. WHAT COLOUR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? God, this thing is long! Not wearing a shirt.

34. SUMMER OR WINTER? Summer.

35. HUGS OR KISSES? Hugs.

39. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? Hah, I skipped a few boring questions. I’m reading Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry. So far I’m not impressed compared to his other books!

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? I just use the couch… I do have a Spongebob Squarepants mousepad somewhere though.

41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON T.V. LAST NIGHT? Reruns of Friends.

42. FAVOURITE SOUND? Bobby yawning, it’s really cute!

43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? Beatles.

44. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME? Mamallapuram, India.

45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? I am really good at convincing people to do stuff (JK calls me The Puppet Master), does that count?

46. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Tønsberg, Norway.

Phew. Since I’m not evil (and because I can’t be arsed to find out who else has been tagged), I’m not going to tag anyone.