2012 seems to be off to an already auspicious start.
And I write that rather sarcastically.
Yesterday Porkchop and I went to Elephant Rocks State Park and climbed around some big rocks.

Big rocks
The rocks are red granite and were formed by big deposits of molten lava. Seeing the rocks and the old quarries makes you appreciate all the natural forces that have formed this little planet of ours. Thinking about a big volcano in mid-Missouri is kind of crazy.
Speaking of crazy, while sitting on the top of a big buried granite boulder, I plunged headfirst into the crazy waters.
It’s been a tear-filled week for me, but sitting on that boulder, I really let it rip. I sobbed and let snot stream out my nose (thanks to Target’s generic Mucinex).
Things that happened over the summer and fall cracked me open, spilling out everything inside of me. It’s been a couple of months, and I still haven’t been able to figure out how to put everything back inside and sew myself up.
The feelings I have weigh me down and wear down those around me. Worst of all, I have intense envy for people who have been able to move past things. I feel stupid for not being able to deal with my shit, and I feel like my growth has been stunted while life continues on for others. I didn’t ask for any of this, and I don’t want to be like this.
I used to have an intense feeling of being homesick, but now I just feel broken. All I want to be is the person who I used to be, not this sack full of sadness and envy and anger.
Given all of this, I guess it’s time I make the call to the therapist who I saw in the fall and talk about antidepressants. This pains me greatly because I wanted to be the one child in my family who didn’t need antidepressants.
Is this the face of depression?

My new alligator buddy
Is this the face of depression?

Keetah being stately
My biggest fear is that antidepressants won’t work. What happens to your thoughts and feelings? How does it change how you feel about things that happened?
While visiting my parents over Christmas, my mom told a family story that I had never heard. In the early 1960s, one of her cousins disappeared. He was headed from Kansas to Colorado to visit his mom, but he never showed up. All of this was on the national news, and the FBI investigated the case, but the cousin was never found. His car turned up later somewhere in Kansas. His horse and cowboy gear were all at the ranch where he worked in Kansas. His bank account was never touched. There didn’t seem to be foul play involved; it was all just very odd. My mom’s aunt was in poor health anyway, and she died not too long after her son’s disappearance. Five years later, he surfaced outside of Phoenix where he was working at a ranch under a different name. Nothing bad had happened to him; he just wanted to start over somewhere completely new.
My family had nothing but bad things to say about this cousin, but I kind of understand him.