I'm Finally Seeing It.

I grew up in the country.  It was absolutely magical.  Each day I watched the sun rise, shine, and set on a big farmer's field that changed colours throughout the year.  On the horizon I could see a big red barn belonging to the Baker's.  Within a five kilometre radius I knew of five good places to swim, and only one of them was a public pool.  When I got strong enough, I was allowed to saddle a horse and set off on an adventure.  I had a partner in crime who basked in the magic of the outdoors with me, even if it meant making the three kilometre walk through the fields to each others houses.  I wrestled calves into a shoot to be branded.  I shot pigeons with a pellet gun.  My cousins and I had a kingdom in which we would play for hours.  It was little more than a small pasture full of dead tree stumps and caragana bushes that had mazes carved through them by cattle.  My childhood was set in a place of never ending adventure and unforgettable beauty.

Then I grew up.  And moved on to bigger things, like school.  Which meant moving into the city.

While deciding which city to pick, I was always DEAD against one.  Calgary.  It was too big, and too busy, and too awful to ever possibly live in.  Thank goodness I wasn't going to live there!

And so I moved to Edmonton.  And then I moved to Lethbridge.  And then something terrible happened.  The cards I got played dictated that my next move was to none other than... Calgary.

And Calgary was awful.  I could hear violent and vulgar fights in my back alley.  I could smell the pot my neighbours were smoking through the heat vents in my house.  The traffic could make a 5 minute drive take what seemed like over half an hour.  My car got broken into.  There was litter and cigarette butts everywhere.  Everything was so crowded.  There were way too many people.  Everyone I met seemed either really weird or really snobby.  Everything I did was always so rushed.  My roommates and I had the cops waking us up in the middle of the night for witness statements about a fight we knew nothing about.  I got parking tickets.  There were no good places to have adventures like back home.  Nothing looked pretty anymore.  Even the houses were ugly with their huge garages and tiny yards.  I was surrounded by an awful city and even the idea of adventure ceased to be available.

Then I went on a run.  Just a month or so ago.  And something amazing happened.

As I look back on it now, I don't think it was a sudden and life-altering revelation like I did at the time.  It was something that's been in the making for awhile now.  Ever since I moved here.  I realized that I'm still surrounded by adventure and beauty.  I simply have to allow myself to see it.  Something I had never let myself do, since I already knew that I hated Calgary.  But on that run, my eyes opened.  I saw the beauty.  And since then I haven't let myself stop looking for it.  Because it turns out it's everywhere.  Even in a city.  And even in Calgary.

One thing I've found with Depression is that when I'm really sick, I struggle with seeing things in any way other than the way I decide on.  If I can't see a way of fixing things, then there's no way of fixing them.  Or, if I know how to fix things, then that's the only way it can be done.  If I say that nothing can make me feel better, then I won't let anything make me feel better.  If I say only this will work, then that's the only thing I will let do the job.  I trap myself into my own words, ideas, and perspectives.  I take myself hostage and in doing so I only make myself more miserable.  I could be laying in a hammock on the rooftop of a beautiful villa in the Galapagos Islands, surrounded by the ocean, basking in the rich and succulent equatorial sunlight (on my own honeymoon for Pete's sake!) and still be convinced that I was going through the worst moment of my entire life.  The mind is a powerful thing.  Fortunately, you're the one that controls it.  You can see the beauty around you, and you can find where those never-ending adventures are.