I’ve always maintained that the sunny days in Washington more than make up for the long days of drizzle, but this year has been rough. Really rough. I’ve tried to stay positive and run outside for a dose of vitamin D every time the sun deigns to reveal itself, but months and months and months and months of cold, wet, shitty weather have finally worn me down.

For someone who struggles with depression and whose only* source of sustained joy is to be active in the outdoors, this has been a miserable year. Last week it seemed like summer (make that “spring”) had finally arrived, so when the freezing wetness returned (and is forecast to hang around until the end of July), I just broke down and haven’t moved from the couch in almost two days. My blind love affair with the Evergreen State is officially over.

Unfortunately, my attempts at convincing JK that we need to move to California have been fruitless. He loves his job. That’s not something you can let go of in the current economic climate, so I guess we’ll be staying here in the Pacific Northwest climate.

Adding insult to injury, the chilly weather has put our snow melt at least a month behind schedule. Sick of postholing, soggy shoes and rotten snow bridges, last weekend (before the sun defected) I was desperate for a trail, any trail, that was snow-free. JK and I decided on Goat Lake, a typical early season (as in May, not July) hike.

I had really low expectations of this hike, so I was surprised to find a beautiful river trail ending at a big, green, inviting alpine lake. I couldn’t resist the clear water and jumped in for a swim, followed by JK and Wellie.

Aah, we were so naïve, thinking our alpine swimming meant that summer had arrived. Wellie even ate watermelon to celebrate the changing of the seasons.

Hopefully the sun will come back, more lakes will melt, and this won’t be the only summery trip report I write this year. In the meantime I’ll try to roll off the couch and motivate myself to make the best of what I’ve got. The honeymoon period may be over, but apparently Washington and I are in it for the long term.

*ok, so JK counts too, but he doesn’t get to be on the list since he’s standing in the way of my relocation plans.

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.