Do something

 I am sitting on the couch with my feet up, my feet bare in front of me and my toes wiggling, even though outside the window, there is snow. Leaning against my chest is a half full cup of blueberry white tea that I choked on moments before I started writing, when while drinking I tried to answer my eldest daughter's question about whether Piper appeared again in the last two Trials of Apollo books. She is writing. She is always writing. 

I feel like I've been sitting on my couch for years.

Depression is an old friend that comes to visit from time to time. That brings with it heaviness and darkness and doubt, an unwillingness to try anything, an inability to get off the couch. And I sit with it, I make it tea, I put out plates of Girl Scout cookies. And I sit.

I'm tired of sitting.

My cheeks burn with the salt left behind by dried tears, tears that have been falling silently down my face all day, though somehow no one who lives in my house has noticed. 

Today, I feel discouraged. 

I've tried things. I've been subbing again, but it has ended up being only one day a week. I tried to set up a teachers pay teachers store, but I haven't actually sold anything. I listened to podcasts and books on overcoming depression, on overcoming writers block, on starting a teacher business.

And nothing has broken through this shadow. Nothing has "worked."

I empty my dishwasher. I fold my laundry. I read Trials of Apollo to my children. I watch Mrs. Maisel. I go to bed. 

I want to do something. I want to do something that matters. I want to get off this couch, to get out of this funk, to get out into the world, to be seen and heard to DO SOMETHING.

I set down my tea.

I pick up my pen.

"I am sitting on my couch."

It's the only place I know to begin.