Trigger Warning: depression and that such.
My sadness is a thing that is separate from me. It lives in a different apartment, sometimes in a different city or state or even country. It often stays there, weeks, months, even years at a time, living it’s own life and not progressing towards mine. In my early twenties it was my constant companion, my sadness and I slept, ate, and lived in the same space. It was, and probably always will be one of the hardest times in my life.
In the last year or so my sadness has come back to town and while it doesn’t live with me quite yet it has gotten disturbingly close. I would not be surprised to find out it lives just next door. One of the most interesting things about being an adult for me has been the ability to really understand my sadness and to see it coming. One of the most annoying things about being an adult is knowing I have to deal with it. So I am. I am doing tangible life things to remind the sadness that it is not invited to my life. That it is not welcome here.
This is all to leads to a couple things. First, we are all different and handle things differently but for me the sadness is not something to be ashamed of or to hide from. The sadness is, a real thing for me. If it is for you I hope knowing you are not alone helps. Second, I did the grown up thing and I went to talk to someone. It was the worst therapy of all time. I got talked at for 45 minutes about something I don’t do, I got drugs pushed on me 3 times, and I was given a bipolar handbook to, “track my moods.” (Just fyi, I am not bipolar, I have a host of things but this is not one of them.) Basically, I paid to be harassed. But I will try again because I understand the importance of good therapy and it is a piece of scaring away the sadness. But seriously, eff that lady.
Personal Stuffs: Mostly, as above, also I am super sick and working on fighting that.
Classroom Stuffs: I really like the way my text is introducing quadratics. I think it’s interesting and relatable.
Personal Change: I joined the gym this morning. As one does when they can’t breathe through their nose.
Classroom Change: Students are having troubling staying with the seating charts. I’m thinking about why that is and how to help them.
Reading: Still Zadie. Also I am listening to Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay. As soon as I get a physical copy I will be quoting the hell out of it. I loves it.
Watching: I watched most of An Honourable Woman this weekend. I am in love with Maggie Gyllenhal and the plot is fascinating.
Your assigned reading (actually lsitening): The new Kayne, Rihanna, Paul McCartney Song.
a brand new line. 
Thanks for putting this out there. I don’t know if I know you well enough to comment too much on your struggle, but I think I relate to your experiences, so I hope I can be supportive or perhaps constructive. It sounds like your relationship with sadness is kind of like Princess Kate, (or Taylor Swift?), and Paparazzi. Sometimes it can seem to be poking around periodically, outside the window, following you around everywhere you go. Perhaps it’s like the super aggressive dudes with drones or whatever, just waiting for you to step out away from your friends, or outside of the classroom. The reason why I thought of that comparison is because the people who handle the TMZ people the best are the ones who are calm about it, even graceful. They know the people are there, but it’s not going to stop them from doing what they need to do. So they can casually walk out of the event and getting into their car, or go to the beach and getting in the water, and are so comfortable with the paparazzi that they can even joke about it. This is of course by design. They may need to get outside help to be able to do that, but that is what they have to do. Perhaps they have to find a security guard whose brand of aggressively militaristic support doesn’t quite match their style, but they will keep working with that person, or perhaps find a better person. (Btw, I’d rather have the therapist that yells indiscriminately at me than the woman I had fall asleep on me once. I stayed with her for a year or so afterwards for consistency sake, but I probably should have went looking for someone else.) Anyways, it sucks that it’s coming back to your neighborhood, but it’s encouraging to hear that you’re handling it gracefully. It sounds like you’re doing your best not to welcome it into places where it shouldn’t be, and your example can help show others to do the same.
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What’s the quadratics text you’re using?
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