I Am Losing the Will to Live – Again

I lost my will to live after my stroke when I was kept inside for 3 months except when my home health PT took me for a walk outside.  I learned I cannot stay sane if all I do is stare at the outside world through a window.  I was imprinted on the natural world as a child because we did not have a TV until I was a teenager and the Internet had not been invented yet.  As soon as I got home from school I went ouside to play.  If only two children were available to play baseball, we invented rules for imaginary players on base.  If I was alone I played hopscotch, practiced throwing a basketball at the hoop, or rode my bike.  As an adult I went camping with friends, jogged outdoors in all seasons, tended a vegetable garden, and took vacations in national parks.  My most vivid vacation memory is riding a mule down into the Grand Canyon.

This hot, humid summer meant I lost the opportunity to walk around my neighborhood, sit on my patio to watch the clouds rolling out to sea, and feel a cool breeze on my face at the lake in Mercer County Park.  At sunset I missed watching pairs of birds racing each other down the middle my street at car height or playing “I can push you off the telephone wire if I land one inch from where you are sitting.”  I realized how deep my depression is when my friend Janet talked about a book that describes about how we developed a relationship with nature for the first tens of thousands of years of human evolution.  The book is called The Moth Snowstorm by Michael McCarthy.

Michael reminded me that nature can both stun and gradually soothe me until I fall silent.  I do not mean I just stop talking.  I mean nature can stop the constant chatter I create in my head but forget is there because it is so constant.  Covid has turned a lot of my internal chatter into catastrophic thinking which is depressing.  I need to find ways to get nature back in my life because I know it has a powerful effect on me.  homeafterastroke.blogspot.com