Monday, February 25, 2019 today begins the end of the shortest month of the year with the promise of spring around the corner.  In less than two weeks we will be back on Daylight Savings time, and the daylight will extend into the early hours of the evening.  Although SAD is one of my struggles this winter, I was able to control the blue and grey mood swings that come over me.  I credit that to my family and friends as well as to myself.  Six years ago when the seasonal affects  (https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/seasonal-affective-disorder) took me down a spiraling abyss, I confronted this disorder.  I acknowledged my depression and sought help.  It was due to an accumulation of events that 2013 was both my worst mental health year and my best!

When we face our demons, and we all have them, it becomes an opportunity to accept the challenges and obstacles that lay before and to use the intelligence (the thought processes) to cut through the heavy, dense fog that is pulling us down, down, down!

In the winter of 2013, I had no idea that I was empowering myself to become the person I always thought I was.  Instead, when I reflected on who I wanted to be and who I was, I knew it was time for a change, and that it is never too late.  Although change can be terrifying and often we (I) have used excuses such as I can’t change because I’m too old, or I don’t have the resources the answer was I couldn’t I was not ready.  Taking the fork in the road in February 2013 has allowed me to be me.

Here are lyrics of I Got to Be Me, sung by Sammy Davis, Jr.

Whether I’m right or whether I’m wrong
Whether I find a place in this world or never belong
I gotta be me; I’ve gotta be me
What else can I be but what I am