The old adage: No news is good news, bothers me, because for me it is outweighed by another phrase, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.
This is an odd discovery at 36 years of age, but with everyone and their mom suddenly proclaiming whether or not they're an introvert or extrovert, taking myers briggs tests, and spending hours on buzzfeed answering arbitrary questions to find out what kind of a cake they'd be if they were in fact  a cake, it feels like something worth addressing.

I, like so very many people, struggle with anxiety/depression.

This is the part where you say, "GIANT DUH."

My Beard and I frequently talk about this because he is one who suffers from this too.
Honestly, everyone does. I think there are two conditions to this statement.
1. You are more prone to be anxious or more prone to be depressed and this affects your reactions to stress.
2. You can either manage it alone, or through a variety of wonderful measures (therapy, medication, journaling, long spousal conversations, in-patient care, etc and any combination of these).

Firstly, there is no wrong way to have anxiety/depression.
Secondly, certain environmental factors will nurture a whole population to simultaneously experience heightened symptoms of their condition, however it manifests.

All of this to say, when I am depressed, one of the biggest tells is that I stop writing. I stop reading. I stop talking to people. I retreat because I don't have anything good to say, so I don't feel worthy of talking.

Hello, I am there, guys.

The last six months have been so fraught with illness, storms, and the general fuckery of the world, that I feel like I am drowning.

There hasn't been a single holiday since Halloween  that hasn't seen us punished with sickness.
Thanksgiving-Dreadful cold and ear infection for the baby, dreadful cold for Beard, Strep for me.
Bastian's Birthday-another cold for all of us, the baby with a fever high enough to take us to the ER.
Christmas-A norovirus that laid us out for six days.
New years-Another cold
The week after new years-the bomb cyclone that marooned us in Boston and cancelled our trip to see Beard's family.
Early March and Jess's big trip to a Florida writing conference- 2 giant storms, delayed flights, and finally an allergic reaction to a bug bite that landed me in a Tampa emergency room.
(sidenote, I still attended the panel I was on, but I was FLYING on benadryl).
Middlemarch-two more storms, and Bastian hitting his head and passing out for a second which was one of the scariest things I've ever seen.
My birthday (last day of March)/Easter-another stomach virus that laid the whole fam out for 8 days.

And here we are.

I have had many conversations with people about how lucky I am.
I am so grateful for so many things. I know we are beyond fortunate. Things could have been so much worse.

But it's okay that I'm also really struggling.