Echoes and footprints

Feeling a little out of sorts today. Not sure if it is the medication or what. I didn't sleep well which I am sure couldn't help. My mind raced as I tried to ease into sleep, disjointed thoughts careening through my head, snippets of memory, vague scenes. I could not focus on any one particular thing before it was replaced by some other thought, kaleidoscopic and vague segues, making finding the rest stop in my mind difficult. However, none of the thoughts ricocheting about my skull were negative or disturbing, just a jumble of sensory information, as though I was turning a radio dial quickly through the frequencies, hoping to settle on some serene station that would accompany me into the silken void of sleep.

Fitful as my sleep was, I still awoke at six o'clock, my newly acquired routine. I haven't made any conscious decision that I should wake up earlier, my brain has just selected this for me. I have awoken most days before my alarm sounds and on those rare occasions when I do not and have tried to hit the snooze button, my mind drives me from the bed, slightly anxious, with a vague sense of purpose. This, in and of itself is not too bad a thing, but it is accompanied by a sensation of being late for something, though at that hour there is no pressing appointment. I have to merely get up and get the kids their breakfast and get them ready for school and six o'clock gives me plenty of time to do that.

It may, on reflection, be related to the memory test the psychiatrist administered just a couple of days ago. Since I could not remember a simple sequence of three nouns, I have been unsettled by the notion that I may be forgetting all kinds of things. Little things, things that taken each by each are not of extreme importance but when summed up result in a lot of wasted time scrambling to take care of them. I forget to grab an item for work from the kitchen table, or to get gas before I leave for my commute, or realize I have forgotten to brush my teeth. So I turn around, go back to that small task, complete it and then shift into high gear to make up for the lost time. From time to time, I will also forget some big, necessary task, or, to be more accurate, I forget to plan for them, so that when the time arrives to do it I am harried and flustered.

This is one of the minute and, in comparison to other symptoms of depression, seemingly inconsequential effects of this disease. It is not the Demon himself, more his footprints, the evidence of his passing through. It is a source of frustration, however, more tiny failings to warrant another round of self-flagellation, and so an oblique and subtle attack of that monster, an echo of his efforts.

Well, back to it. The day must go on, things need doing. These musings must wait.