It’s that time of the year again. Four years ago today my story almost ended – it seems like longer than that. It seems like lifetimes ago.

That said, it’s been a tough year. (Duh) Probably the toughest year I have had since prior to 4 years ago. My depression has waxed and waned more than usual, which hasn’t been great. But the anxiety, which interestingly enough was never my bigger issue, is what has really been kicking my ass up one side and back down the other this year.

It got to a point this winter where I was crying every single day. I would sit at my computer literally shaking. I couldn’t stop rubbing my feet back and forth across the carpet. I couldn’t stop vibrating my legs up and down and side to side. I would find my heart racing so badly that I would feel dizzy and nauseous. I felt like I was trying to crawl out of my own skin. It sucked, for quite a while. (Thank god for Dave through this whole time.) Working with my doctor I finally got that level of anxiety under some control, but it’s not gone completely back to prior levels. It’s still there, making me uncertain and tentative. I still rub my feet back and forth across the carpet sometimes. I still shake, or need to walk away from whatever I am doing and lay down for a minute to calm my racing heart. But it’s better than it was, and sometimes that is what we need to celebrate.

THAT SAID, the new Jenny Lawson book came out just a few days ago and I was laying on the couch reading it yesterday. I started giggling over something particularly funny. Dave looked over and smiled and said how good it felt to seeing me reading again, to hear me laughing. I was struck by that. Has it really been that long since I laughed? I didn’t think so, but apparently maybe it had been. I hadn’t noticed, which isn’t necessarily the best thing. Mental note: gotta pay more attention to that.

And reading Jenny’s book got me thinking about my own book, which has just been sitting in a computer file since last summer, technically first draft completed. The problem at this point is that to move forward, I really need to start getting serious about it. I’ve had a couple beta readers (literally 2,) but I didn’t get much from them and I need more input to move forward. And I desperately need someone who can edit. But that costs money, not to mention the effort to find someone. And the whole process is just so intimidating and overwhelming. I was certainly in no place to think about it while I was barely capable of basic survival for all those months, but even now, just typing about it, I am starting to feel the anxiety creep up. Maybe it is just too much for me. Maybe writing the book was the best I can do and it will never see the light of day. It makes me kinda (really) sad. But that’s one of those problems with mental health issues. Even when we are doing “better” or “okay” it can still be enough of a barrier to keep us from doing some things that other people would have little to no issue doing. So I spent three years writing a book about my mental health that may languish in MS Word purgatory forever because of my mental health. How very meta.

So here I find myself, four years later. In most ways better, in some ways not, but…

I am here.

And every year I sit here on this day and can type those three words, it’s a win.