Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Mind the Gap
Today is Hallowe'en, the very last day of October, and here I am writing only my fourth blog post of the month. It's not that I have been starved for material: there have been Presidential Debates, horrific stories about bullying, the usual crap from Rob Ford and his ilk. It is National Bullying Prevention Month; I was accepted as a Zoo Volunteer; my beautiful partner had a big birthday; it's the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. But no matter how many times I have started to put together a few thoughts for a new piece, I have found myself unable to carry through on it. I could make up excuses, like I have done all my life. I could tell you I've been under the weather (true for part of the month); I could tell you I have been too busy planning Sarah's surprise party (also not a fabrication, entirely); I could say I was having computer troubles, or physical pains, or needed a new prescription for my glasses, or myriad other things and you would probably take it on good faith. But while none of these statements is completely false, they have had very little to do with my absence for weeks at a time from this blog.
The plain and honest truth of the matter is this: I am depressed.
I have been fighting depression for most of my adult life—likely much of my childhood, too—and I think it's reasonable to assume I will be doing so for the rest of my days on Earth. At times I have received counseling for it; medication has also helped in the past and, some times, caused more problems than it has solved. But the simple truth—although there is truly nothing "simple" about it—is that I am at constant risk of a wave of depression coming upon me with very little warning and virtually paralyzing me emotionally.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
The 2012 American League MVP Debate
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Miguel Cabrera, leaving the game with the Triple Crown |
But now another, quite heated debate has begun: should Miguel Cabrera be the American League's Most Valuable Player for 2012?
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
The Boys of Bummer
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The moment the Blue Jays threw in the towel credit: William Perlman/The Star-Ledger |
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
On Quiet Souls with Deep Feelings
I had a very "Stand By Me" moment last week. If you are not familiar with the movie, it came out in 1986, directed by Rob Reiner and based on a Stephen King novella. The film's narrator is a writer around the age of forty, taken back jarringly to a summer when he was twelve by reading a newspaper account of the death of an old friend from that time. In my case, I'm at least ten years older than the protagonist of Stand By Me and the age I was yanked back to was sixteen.
I received in the mail last week the Fall 2012 copy of The Root, the alumni magazine of my high school, University of Toronto Schools (UTS). I was absentmindedly leafing through it when I came to the "In Memoriam" section near the back of the periodical. It was there that I learned of the passing (by way of cancer) of a woman who had been in the level behind mine, someone I hadn't seen nor spoken to in well over thirty years but who holds a very special place in my heart nonetheless. She was my date to the UTS Formal in my graduating year and, in point of fact, my first date period. If you saw any pictures of me back then, you'd know why.
I knew I was going to have to create a post about her passing and I wrestled with whether to list her whole name in this piece. Because this won't really be about her life (a life I did not share so it would be presumptuous of me to think I had any right to speak to it here) but the brief part of it that we spent together, I decided to just use her first name, which was Leslie. If you know me (or her) well enough, you'll be able to fill in the rest; if not, I wish to respect the privacy of those who have survived her.
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