Like Orion on a Cloudy Night

It was a stressful day. Which is weird because it should not have been so burdened by stress. The morning started like any other Sunday: Joylyn and Annie helped me complete barn chores before we all went out to breakfast as a family at our favorite little greasy dive in Rathrum. Later in the day, Annie went out for a horseback ride with one of her friends while I relaxed and played video games. I spent some time cleaning in the kitchen while Annie prepped the dining room table for a crafting project. Then we went on some errands to get wood stain and groceries. The day ended after a walk with our Mastiff at the dog park, more housework, and bedtime barn chores.

No dire emergencies. No kids arguing. No mishaps. No perceivable cause for frustration. Still, while we were on the freeway between home and Winco my brain declared battle against itself, like there was a civil war waging between my prefrontal cortex and my amygdala. From the coattails of a relaxing Sunday, I was suddenly and inexplicably overwhelmed by anxiety. My shoulders tightened, my chest was constricted, and my breathing grew shallow. Thoughts of impending dread and inevitable failure flooded over me.

There was no logical reason for me to feel the way I felt. Even in the moment I knew there was no validity behind my anxiety. It was what it was. I knew my emotional paralysis was devoid of substance yet I was powerless to avoid it. I felt better the next morning, ready to tackle a new work week and carry on as if I hadn’t been plagued by self sabotage less than 24 hours prior. But Sunday night, for causes beyond my capability to describe or understand, was rough. Sometimes it’s hard to get out of my own head.

After we returned home, and when the worst of the anxiety faded, I walked out of the house to retrieve groceries from the trunk. I briefly looked up and noticed a small break in the clouds perfectly framing the constellation Orion. The belt was shining bright. A few years of living on the farm has made those three stars the easiest for me to identify among the abundance of distant suns populating our night sky. I stood still for a moment and traced the outline of Orion up to the club and shield then down to the hem of his garment. I marveled at the unique position of my geographical location. The constellation was perfectly framed by cloud cover - grey masses above and below it, and to both sides. The overcast sky obscured all other constellations visible in early February.

I removed a few grocery bags from the trunk, closed it and looked up once more before going inside. In the time it took me to gather our purchases, the clouds shifted, blown by currents of wind. The only stars still visible were Zeta, Epsilon, and Delta – Orion’s Belt. A few seconds later and those stars also disappeared behind the overcast weather.

A couple hours later, I ventured outside once more to feed our animals and refill their water troughs. At the barn, my eyes wandered toward space again and the clouds populating the inland northwest earlier in the day had dissipated, pushed further east by the jet stream, revealing the clear and beautiful expanse of endless galaxies above us. Orion the hunter still stood proud above me, joined by his neighbors Cassiopeia and Pisces.

Orion is there somewhere

In a short span of time, Orion was the only constellation to be seen, vanished, then reappeared joined by dozens of visible constellations. Time and meteorological changes in the atmosphere alter the way we see the stars. Yet the shifts and adjustments in astronomy move slower. Night after night, Orion is still Orion. Mars and Jupiter move into and out of our night sky in long lethargic arcs. The moon cycles through its phases from full to new and back again every 29 and a half days, the subtle change barely perceptible from one night to the next.

As I pondered these quick adjustments in weather and its effect on our perception of the longer lasting existence of astronomical phenomena, I realized my struggles with depression and anxiety were much the same. My emotional state is often like the clouds, moved by circumstance and unseen forces. My melancholic disposition sways between bitter and sweet, often lingering where the two are blended. There are times my anxiety completely blurs my grandeur, other times it breaks long enough to observe glimmers of greatness. Then there are days where depression breaks and I feel as if I can shine. Regardless of how I feel from one moment to the next, I’m still me. I possess the same hopes and fears while overcome with anxiety as I do when serotonin and dopamine levels in my brain are stable. Moods come and go like the weather but my goals and beliefs remain, only to be changed through slow progression.

When I am feeling down, I know that feelings are only temporary. Anxiety comes, but it also goes. Happiness exists on the other side of these temporal adjustments. This concept isn’t an easy one to explain to someone who doesn’t struggle with depression and anxiety. If you want to better understand what it’s like to be me, just watch the stars on a partially cloudy night. Perhaps you could learn something from Orion.