The last 72 hours were some of the most relaxing and eye-opening days of my life. I took a sabbatical from work and from the blog to focus my energies on writing. All I wanted was peace and quiet so I could collect my thoughts, look over my 100 pages of first drafts, and outline a book about my battle with depression.

Three days in and I wrote close to ten chapters and written close to forty pages. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s been therapeutic for me. For the first time, I stopped bottling up my story, and now I’m sharing the journey for others. Did I mention that I wrote ten chapters and forty pages with one hand? My hand hurts now. I did purchase Office 365 on my laptop and started writing. I thought it was going to be hard, but I was making it hard.

I knew what I was going to talk about and asked my dad for constructive criticism. A fresh eye never hurts, and it does put things into perspective. I still have a long way to go before publishing it for the entire world. That is my goal for next year. I want to take my time with this and spread the word. Once I started writing, the hours flew by so fast. Before I knew it, lunch was over, and dinner was on the horizon. I burned through two large cups of iced coffee already, and that’s not good for my anxiety.

Writing out your story and expressing your feelings in words really affect you in a good way. For me, having to relive certain times were hard, but I got it out of my system. It felt great. I can move onward now. I still have a lot to do, and all I think about is the book. I guess that’s better than drowning in depression. I think about positive things now and keep my mind going.

My hand is getting better, and I’m still impatiently waiting for November 14th to hurry up and get here. I will be cast free and get more work done. I still have vacation time coming and plan to use that wisely and continue to write. I feel as though I’m doing something right in my life for the first time in my life. I don’t feel useless anymore. My weight still has been steady. I’ve been eating healthier, but I still need to get out and exercise a lot more. Thankfully, the weather is a lot cooler now, and I can spend hours outside just walking and breathing.