Well, I'm still here, and quite happy I might add. WTF? This is definitely NOT me. Not at this time of year.

Tim and I went out all day on Wednesday, Christmas shopping of all things! And I am proud to report that we had not ONE disagreement, argument, misunderstanding. Now that is big for us (or me, I should say).

This has been a tough year. My depression not only stayed with me throughout most of this past year, but it was the most debilitating depression I have experienced to date.

My youngest son turned 10 yesterday. I had the kitchen in full decorated mode so that when he woke up and came in for breakfast, he was surrounded by balloons, streamers, banners, etc. I haven't done that in years, for either child. I had his "goodie bags" ready by 6am so that he had them to pass out to his class ON his birthday. Last year, there were no "goodie bags". His mama took a mental vacation for that birthday.

And last Christmas, Tim had to actually shed a few tears of disgust in order for me to even contemplate putting up a Christmas tree. So I reluctantly got my fat ass out of bed on Christmas Eve morning, crawled in to the attic, threw down the decorations and threw up the tree within 15 minutes. When I think about it I could cry. How selfish I was. How depressed I was.

But you know what is even more amazing. As I write about my guilt, I am already in a phase where I refuse to let the guilt fester so that it gets so enormous in my own mind that I get a case of the fuck-its. I refuse to let guilt ruin my present or my future. It has already spent enough time ruining my past.

Now that, my dear friends, IS PROGRESS!

So fuck guilt! Bring it on baby! I ain't having none of that this time. No way, no how. You can try to ruin my holiday high, but you can't do it. So there!