2682 Spleeder Of Splenn.

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I’m tired tonight in a way that feels different than just being tired. It feels like my soul is tired. Sad. I’m prone to depression, but this isn’t quite like what I’m used to. My depression, especially in recent years, tends to be very extreme, but also very short lived. This feels like a slow burning sadness like the embers of a dying fire. Melancholic I guess would be a good word for it. Ultimately it doesn’t matter. I will get up and do the things I need to do, regardless of how I feel, until I absolutely can’t anymore. Even in sadness it’s better to do something. Or so I believe.

Anyway, hopefully I will see you here on Friday, feeling good, and looking sharp; ready to enjoy another page of my creation. Until then, be well.

17 Comments

Hey Jackie, I want to tell you that I love your comic. There’s no other patreon or ko-fi or anything like that I subscribe to. But you I do, Because the way that you (and your comics) are, speaks to me. I’ve been reading since we could describe history as “The Good Old Days.” (certainly when you were still B/W, but so long ago that I can’t remember when I started).

I’d take you for a drink if you were in AZ.

Hug you if I could.

Well, if I’m ever heading that way I’ll try to remember to announce it so you can remind me. I don’t drink, but I’ll take a soda.
Thanks for sticking with me for so long.

“Even in sadness it’s better to do something.” BF and your Comments has inspired many moments of worthwhile introspection for me, and now this useful reminder. My wife of 28 years died 12 days ago and my sorrow is profound and likely to remain so – grief has its own schedule. While I’m fortunate to have a neighborhood and a church community that loves me and provides what succor they can, when I return to a too-quiet empty house my despair catches up to me. DOING SOMETHING is indeed better than letting sadness overwhelm me. Thanks.

I wish I had something I could say that is better than “do something” but it’s the only thing I’ve ever found that actually helps long term. Although I think a person needs to wallow in grief sometimes so it can wash over and flow past you. You’ll always hurt, you just get accustomed to the absence.

The reason I work through negative emotions has never been more clearly expressed than through my favorite poem, so rather than trying to say something similarly profound I’ll just share it in hopes that it helps you in some way.

The Lesson
Paul Laurence Dunbar

My cot was down by a cypress grove,
And I sat by my window the whole night long,
And heard well up from the deep dark wood
A mocking-bird’s passionate song.

And I thought of myself so sad and lone,
And my life’s cold winter that knew no spring;
Of my mind so weary and sick and wild,
Of my heart too sad to sing.

But e’en as I listened the mock-bird’s song,
A thought stole into my saddened heart,
And I said, “I can cheer some other soul
By a carol’s simple art.”

For oft from the darkness of hearts and lives
Come songs that brim with joy and light,
As out of the gloom of the cypress grove
The mocking-bird sings at night.

So I sang a lay for a brother’s ear
In a strain to soothe his bleeding heart,
And he smiled at the sound of my voice and lyre,
Though mine was a feeble art.

But at his smile I smiled in turn,
And into my soul there came a ray:
In trying to soothe another’s woes
Mine own had passed away.

Grief does not end. But it fades, becomes less frequent and less intense, with time. I still occasionally mourn my first wife, who died over fifty years ago. And my second, who died five years ago. I still love them both. But missing them gets easier with each passing year, as I establish new patterns of life.

Jackie, it sounds as if the depression you’re used to is “acute depression”, but what you’re feeling lately is more like “chronic depression”. I’ve lived with chronic depression most of my life, but didn’t realize it until my 30s. I’ve never felt suicidal, just… down. There are times when my emotions all seem to be various shades of gray. In a past century, I definitely would have been described as “melancholic.”

Unfortunately, acute depression responds much better to anti-depressants than chronic depression does. Talk therapy and physical exercise are supposed to help a lot, but when everything seems gray, neither of those has any appeal to me. So I keep taking the anti-depressants, because even though they don’t seem to help much, I feel worse when I *stop* taking them.

Hope you find a way out of the gray fog. Good luck and best wishes to you!

Oh i’m so happy i found this comic. I discovered this through Questionable Content! I love all the dynamics you have going- And this one just reminds me of me and my boyfriend in particular lol. Great work!

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