Happy Mani’s Day!
I have been gone a while – again. But I guess, in some regards, success of a limited kind lulled me into a false sense of security. But Yesterday hit me with a lot of sudden anxiety and the depression that follows. It’s been building, but I have always, until now, been able to ignore it or put it on hold, so to speak. The Grey has long been my relabeling of a condition that I possess, which is this mixture of anxiety and depression that I seem always to be walking through and battling. Thus, the blog name: The Grey Wayfarer.
These last few months, I have felt really good in many ways. My YouTube Channel, The Rabyd Atheist, has actually developed into a supportive community and is doing well, but it could be doing better. I have almost given up on getting a promotion at work. And have, for the first time, explored my options for other employment, and it doesn’t look good. I really have put myself in a position, if I want to stay close to my family, of making writing and YouTube work along with my job. It is just that I feel a low level of anxiety about the whole thing.
Picture, if you will, a man clad in grey walking through a forest. He is accompanied by his wolves and ravens. The rain is pouring down in that way that creates gloom, and the forest shadows cause a lot of anxiety. Despite the ravens, some things still hide from view. The rain washes away the scent of danger, so the wolves cannot anticipate what’s next as the patter of the rain disguises sounds as well. The path gets flooded, and so at the various forks in the road, it is hard to see which is the best route. The Man is not lost, but conflicted. His lack of information and foresight is blinding his one eye. His own foresight sees only possibilities but not certainty.
Some of you may recognize the other part of The Grey Wayfarer – My identification in spirit with the wandering god, Odin the All-Father. But the analogy is fitting in many ways. Odin’s reputation is mixed. He is not always the good guy. Nor is he bad. Depending on who you talk to, I am a hero or a villain. I accept this; it is life. For the longest time, my wolves have been a reflection of my needs and desires and my hunger for them to be fulfilled. My ravens – reason and wisdom. My path – the Nine Noble Virtues. As a Wayfarer, minimalism is my habit. One’s pack cannot be too heavy. My one eye remains because I sacrificed my old life of religion, faith, and all the BS that comes with it, to find a truer sight in my mind and heart. The one eye I have left seeks love, wisdom, and justice. But confound it, the rain and gloom are making all of this hard.
I never know precisely what will trip me over back into this, and perhaps it has been long in coming. Autistic Masking has been my trouble, and I think I have been masking my own emotions from myself. Is that possible?
But yesterday, I found myself spending the day alone and hating every moment of it. I then tried to do laundry, and my car wouldn’t start. I think the battery has finally started to lose the battle of keeping a charge. My son jumped me, so it started, and for a while was fine. Until I had to go to work, then it did it again. So I had to call into work, and I really can’t afford to do that. And then, as I went back inside, planning to get a new battery somehow, I tripped. I fell into a state of anxiety I haven’t felt in a long time. My stoic philosophy was saying “control what you can control,” but the emotions of looking at my car troubles, being alone to face them, and looking at the financial issues of my life right now, and I tripped and fell, and when I got up, The Grey was there, and I stood there wondering what to do. Anxiety about the future mixed with that low, gloomy depression was a state I thought long forgotten.
As I write this, I look at the clock and realize I was there for roughly five hours – I took a nap (not the restful kind), tried unsuccessfully to be creative, sat staring at a screen, and doomscrolling. Then doing nothing at all. And then it hit me. I have been pretending that I finally got out of The Grey to the point that I have not been doing the things I need to do to walk successfully through it. I labelled it as something of my past and not the present. It’s a horrible mistake to think things are all right when they are not.
I forgot a simple truth – depression and anxiety are something you can manage but can never cure. I will always be The Grey Wayfarer. I have to remember this to survive.
Let’s picture our hero in his gloomy, rainy forest once again. He is standing. No progress is being made. Stagnation. But then he takes a step and then another. There is something I have learned in all the walking I have done. Something I need to get back to once the temperatures get regularly above freezing. There is a moment when you are motivated to keep walking and cannot, for the life of you, figure out where the motivation comes from. It’s raw humanity that is, in many ways, undescribable. I feel like I am at that moment.
So I take a step and another. I don’t really care what th path is, just that I am moving down it once again.
The one thing that is for sure is…
I remain.
The Rabyd Skald – Wandering Soul, Bard, and Philosopher. The Grey Wayfarer.
Skal!!!
The Grey Wayfarer 