--Originally published at Taking the Risk…IS success!

This is a quarterly blog now, I guess.  Someday I’ll write more often. Anyway!  I’m finally feeling mostly like my old self again

Ah, Life

I’ve been listening to The Hilarious World of Depression podcast lately and I’ve been struck by the comedians being interviewed.  A common thing happens in many- they are telling the world how they are depressed and by doing so they help other depressed people.  Well, I’ve been depressed since 2013 and I’m happy to say that finally, this past fall, I managed to get on the right medication.  That is truly something to be thankful for.  I was still pretty high-functional for the past 3 years but everything was an effort.  Getting myself to work.  Doing laundry.  Getting out of bed.  I kept having negative thoughts on an unending cycle in my brain.  It came to a point where I was really wondering if it would ever stop.  I thought that Maybe I was just getting old and that I’d feel this way ’til I died.

The beginning of the Ingrid Michaelson song Do It Now pretty much summed it up…

…Watching as the world goes hammering on
Hammering on

You say that you’ve got nothing left
There’s nothing left in you to find
You’re gonna ride it out gonna wait it out
Living to die, you’re living to die

But she goes on and says just suck it up and do it, so that’s what I did.

No one’s gonna wait for you
No one’s gonna wait for you

So do it now
Do it right now
Don’t waste a minute on the darkness and the pity sitting in your mind and
Do it right now
Do it right now

But I didn’t much enjoy it.  I was wondering if I’d ever be passionate about anything again. At the same time I realized that passionate can sometimes boil over into obsession, and that’s not good.

The second best thing I did last year was get involved with ImprovBoston.  I have been taking classes steadily for a year now and the joy of working spontaneously with other people in front of an audience and making people laugh is truly wonderful medicine.  I got involved with a troupe of great people that is now entitled Beast Inflection (the troupe, not the people).  No website yet, unfortunately.  Then, in October, I started taking Musical Improv 101 and absolutely Loved It.  In November I saw this musical improv group was having auditions and I tried out just to have another time to practice, not really thinking I’d get in and… I got in.  They are called Agent Superball.  We’ve done shows at ImprovBoston Comedy Lab and CageMatch and at the Riot Theater in JP.  Finally, last week I auditioned for Musical Improvised History and got into That too!  So with the above and the 2 classes I’m taking at IB I am pretty darn busy.  But not too busy– Beast Inflection let me take a hiatus for 2 months.