A return to awakeyness

I'm finally back home, and after a few days of jetlag- and winter-induced depression, I finally am feeling wonderful about being here and am ready to write again.

I hate my depression more than any other aspect of my existence. There are simply periods of time, usually no more than a day or two at a stretch but sometimes as much as several weeks, when I am profoundly unhappy and no stimulus can change my mood. This phenomenon reminds me a few times every year that huge parts of what I consider to be my personality and my identity are really just artifacts of my brain's chemistry. And if I know that feelings of misery and profound anger and sadness can be essentially chemical accidents, then so can be my feelings of happiness and joy at other times. How, then, can I ever trust that how I feel is really a product of what I am experiencing? And how can I ever trust that I am perceiving the world with any kind of accuracy, when my interpretation of events can be so drastically altered by the simple accident of my mood on the day those events take place?

These questions are the worst part of depression for me. Because, although I only experience the depression itself a week or two out of each year, I doubt the reality of my feelings constantly as a result.

I am back, though, and yesterday and today I feel really, really good. I'm headed to the university to confer with my professors about the status of my master's thesis, so by tonight I may very well know my graduation date! The rest of the day will be spent working on said thesis and getting my resume circulating. If anyone out there is looking for a Japanese and German speaking computer programmer, drop me a line!