Today Maya Angelou went home.

I'm sure she'll hear, "Well done, you good and faithful servant."

She may not be Catholic, but I believe Saint Peter is waiting for her.

Depression strengthens my faith. That statement may sound awkward but when I'm at the point where I feel exhausted from all my efforts and my mind can't come up with any more partial answers, I confess, "I took my eyes off of you, Jesus." I find the purpose in my suffering is to turn my eyes towards Him.

When I do turn my eyes back to Him, my perspective changes, my hope is renewed, and my threshold for frustration increases. Best of all, getting back up from each down moment tells me that I am far from the immature young man I used to be.

Sometimes I get depressed. I have a threshold. I keep myself busy, sometimes too busy, and I aim for the ceiling. When I don't reach it sometimes I get disappointed and sometimes the stress of my many activities takes a toll.

Right before I realize I need to recharge, I feel low. That's what I call depression. Fortunately I have never felt what's called "clinical depression." What I feel, for days or weeks, is merely a signal telling me that I need to adjust. How I react to such a signal can lead me into new realizations, fresh growth and wisdom. Inevitably I end up sharing every life lesson I learn.

Today was a long day. After work I had to facilitate a group from 6pm to 7:30pm. At 7:45pm I called my girlfriend. She reported that she'd had a tiff with her mom. She knows how much time I have left but has not told her mom, so now her mom is pressing her with questions. She needed to vent so she did so in a letter and mailed it to me. I haven't received the letter yet, but I've been warned.

I was already feeling tired before I got warned. Now I'm thinking.

I had a very endearing phone call today. 

My girlfriend said she believes in me. 

When a man's woman says those words to him it can give him the boost he needs to overcome anything. 

The effect of a good woman's love is priceless.

When violence occurs in prison, sometimes we all suffer. Today that happened at 7:30am. There was an incident after breakfast, in a different yard but it was serious enough to shut the whole prison down. 

Guards from all the other yards responded. This made the other yards short on staff. The procedure when that happens is to lock all the inmates in their cells until the full complement of staff returns. That may take a while, because the staff who responded to the incident now have to full out paperwork attesting to what they witnessed when they ran over there. And if you know how much humans LOVE filling out paperwork, you know they'll drag their feet. 

So that's how Mothers' Day started. Hopefully the program will return to normal before nightfall, so I can call my mom and wish her a happy Mothers' Day.

...my TV is dying. The picture signal is coming in only black and white. The sound is drowned out by white noise. Old Bettsie is singing her swan song.
Farewell, old friend.