“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

I believe that I cannot protect myself from sadness without protecting myself from happiness, because one is the twin of the other, both joined at the hip.

If you can’t be sad, you can’t know what it means to be happy. Just like light follows the darkness.

This path month I have been sad, worn down by hatred and argument, and by my own sometimes fragile soul.

I have to be honest, and admit that the past month knocked me down and brought me to a bad place. Too many things came together all at once – the sad state of our country, the loss of my computer, a  grinding tech ordeal involving my photographs, the sudden inability to write what I wanted when I wanted, my realization that my life as a book author is truly over, and the sadness, death and neediness I see almost every day of my life.

Every day I was distracted and drained by problems I couldn’t solve, damage I couldn’t fix. Nothing is worse for a creative head than that.

I didn’t experience anything that almost everyone reading this experiences from time to time, I am just a human dealing with the life of a human. But it felt -and was – relentless.

The computer photo troubles were somehow especially debilitating. They knocked my confidence and optimism down, the sense I am coping well with my life, doing something meaningful, something that matters.

It went on for so long, and was so frustrating.

My agent and I cooked up a great book idea, but there were no takers. I don’t want to write books any longer, I love writing on my blog, but I guess I wanted it to be my choice, not theirs.

Identity is precious, time for me to embrace this change and learn to love it.

I told Richard that if I couldn’t sell this great idea behind one of the best agents in the country with five New York Times best sellers under my belt, that it was time let go of books and quite happily devote myself my creative work – my writing, my photos – to my blog, which grows both in meaning, audience and intensity.

People visit my blog four million times a year, and there is no way even I can call that failure.

My angels are trying to tell me a great truth, and I am finally open to hearing it.  Change, they say, move forward, the light burns brightly inside of you. You have a lot to offer.

For so much of my life, my identity has been tied to writing books, I am so fortunate to have this new identity, which I love and has led me to good and great work.

I am not one of those people to lament growing older, but it is true that part of growing older is learning when to let go and how to let go.

For awhile, technology stole my identity and my purpose and my confidence, and that felt like a betrayal to me. I was suddenly quite helpless, at the mercy of others, and it brought up old feelings and struggles.

When I look at this photo of my granddaughter heading out for Halloween in a Stegosaurus suit that I bought for her, I am lifted up by life on the other end of the spectrum. Hers is a message of hope and promise, I want to help leave her with a better world.

Sometimes my heart is filled with sorrow at the cruelty, hatred and conflict that is tearing us apart. I truly am helpless there, and most days it inspires me to get busy and do good and sometimes – the past two months – it just brings me down.

Doing good brings me up.

Tonight, I went to the Mansion, Maria and I called the Bingo Game. I had fun teasing the residents, i started singing versus of Amazing Grace while I got boos and lots of ribbing. But lots of laughs. I was just where I should be, doing just what I should be doing.

Today, I began to heal and feel better. I send a box of baseball caps engraved with “Bishop Maginn Mural Mob” to the very gifted mural painters at Bishop Maginn High School. I shipped five boxes of blankets, sweaters, shoes and socks to the school. I was told that every child who needed a sleeping bag or blanket got one.

That is a beautiful thing to know as this cold descends. (Thank you).

At the Mansion, Sylvie told me she missed me when I was gone and  handed me another letter to read. Peggie asked if I could help get her a winter coat so she could go outside. Helen was sitting in a hallway, she said she was cold. I gave her a lap robe that she loved. Tim came over in his wheelchair to thank me for his racing car jigsaw puzzle..

I got a lego set for Tia’s son. Nancy and Bert got the sweaters they needed in this cold weather

And Maria and I helped a sheep, Izzy, to die a humane and merciful death. She was awfully sick.

My new computer is working well for me so far and I am writing freely again.

I am getting my identity back. For much of my life, I have battled different forms of anxiety and depression, but not for some years. I know one is never completely done with those kinds of illnesses, but over the past few weeks I did lose myself a bit, it’s like a deep well is punctured and spews black mud.

People suffer a lot worse than I have, but this hit me in my vulnerable spot, knocked me down again. I’ve been there before, I don’t like it. My eyes are fine, but I worried there was danger.

And frankly, I was just tired. The last few years have been hard and wonderful. But my head needed a break, and my computer co-operated. I’ve got a lot of stuff going all the time, all of it is rewarding, none of it simple.

I am bounding back, otherwise I would not even be writing this. Back to my good and wonderful life, full of love and purpose. Well prepared for another winter. When I was young, my mother told me to eat all of my food because children were starving in other countries.

But fear and sadness don’t work that way. It doesn’t matter what other people feel. We don’t get to give our troubles away.

We feel what we feel. Pain is pain, loss is loss, fear is fear. To live without those feelings is to not be human, and I am proud and grateful to be so very human.

I just felt like sharing all of that as I am putting my life back together.  I am getting my mojo back, feeling less helpless and at the mercy of others. I am filling up again with energy. Maybe it was Chris’s lucky $100 bill, or the arrival of Zinnia, a bright and cheerful creature.

Sadness for me is cleansing, purifying, it flushes out the bad stuff, and leaves room for the light.

I have so much to do, so much to live for. A friend wrote a blog post with began with the words “of course,  nobody likes getting older.”

I messaged her right away. “I like getting older,” I wrote. “Am I anyone?” Yes, I think so. I am.