"Ordinary life does not interest me. I seek only the high moments. I am in accord with the surrealists, searching for the marvelous." ~Anais Nin

11 November 2014

Armistice Day/Veterans Day 2014

The Parable of the Old Man and the Young


Wilfred Owen1893 - 1918
So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
and builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

05 November 2014

Changes are being made

 Okay, I am slowly, but surely cleaning up my online presence.  Slowly, but surely cleaning up my life.  I've deleted or reverted to draft ALL my posts from 2011 and many, many others.  They just don't fit where my head is right now, or where I think it will be again.  Or at least anytime soon.

I've been in a strange and contemplative mood for the last couple of weeks, and feel like I am undergoing a sea-change.  Maybe I am.  I certainly hope I am: things need to change, I need to change.  Maybe this is the beginning.

Or maybe this is just a mood.

I suppose I'll find out.

It doesn't really matter.  All I know is that I feel different.  I feel like I'm changing.  I feel . . . like maybe my life will get a little bit better soon.

I'll write more later.  Something deeper, more in depth.  I want to write more on my religious beliefs and my life and goals and dreams and whatnot.  I'm going to be taking more time between posts, working on my own things, and I want to make sure that what I do post is more coherent.  Life has been complicated (and rather awful) lately, but I feel like that is going to change.  I just want this blog to keep up.

23 September 2014

And finally it ends

It's auspicious, I think, that I'm writing this now on the autumnal equinox, Mabon, or whatever else you want to call it.  (Though this probably won't be published until tomorrow, I got a late start and I keep letting myself get distracted.)  Finally, finally The Summer of Death and Pain is over.  Not to say that Death and Pain won't still follow me, but it seems to mostly be coming to an end.  This summer is coming to an end.

Please let it be coming to an end.

This summer started with my cousin dying, a horrible and tragic death, and it's ended with my dad being sick - not the blood clots that almost cost him his leg from last month, but some crazy gallbladder thing that caused renal failure, and the collapse of the lower part of his lungs.  He's home now, my dad, with a tube to drain the excess bile from his gallbladder into what looks like a colostomy bag.  In a few weeks, once he's recovered enough, he'll head back to the hospital to have that gallbladder removed.  Right now, though, he's got to empty his bag regularly, and the house smells weird (in a bad way).  Between Sara's death and this new horror from my father, I've hurt my hip, caught a virus that knocked me on my ass, got stuck in the middle of crazy drama at the library (which may ultimately cost me my job there), have seriously neglected my blogs and felt guilty because of it, haven't made any headway on any of the writing stuff I wanted to get done, been rejected by several prospective jobs, and haven't been able to claw my way out of this damn depression.  Top that with my last remaining grandparent in the hospital for some old person malady, gaining five pounds, and not being in full control of my emotions (most notably anger).  

It's been a hell of a summer.  Or, more accurately: this summer has been hell.  I need a change of season.

It's made me reevaluate some things.  I don't have a clear plan on what I want to do, but it's coming.  I'm moving slowly, cautiously to the next road in my life.  I'm standing at the crossroads and I want to check my maps.  I want to move forward with a plan this time.  I don't want to have a vague idea and the "see where the world takes me" attitude that I've used to go nowhere for the past several years.    I want to know what I want and go after it with my whole self.  Fear of failure be damned.

While I rest here a bit and discover my route, I'm cleaning house.  If you're familiar with any of my other blogs, well, I've deleted them.  Except for this one and my professional blog (which I haven't updated in a month or so), and my tumblr accounts which are no work at all to maintain.  I'm still working on The Gothic Library too, but that's not so much a blog as it is a resource or collection of resources - it's slow going there too.  But that's it.  I'm whittling away my online presence.

From cyberspace to the real world - I need to clean house there too.  Literally and figuratively.  I'm going to take a bit of a break next week, recharge, run some ideas past an old friend down in the Ozarks, and then maybe come home to implement those ideas.

All I really know right now is that I need to get a handle on life.  It's a freaking mess and has been for a while now.

I've had some good things happen recently, though, and am hoping that more will happen, momentum will build, and I'll be able to put this awful, awful summer behind me.  What good things happened?  Well, I had a good interview with Burns and McDonnell for a corporate librarian job (Data Curation Librarian is the actual title).  I'm hopeful, but not exactly holding my breath.  Still, a good interview is something.  And I got a new cat.  We named him Jasper.  I'll talk more about both in my next post.

06 September 2014

Places I'd like to see before I die

Croatia: Specifically Ogulin, Croatia in the shadow of the mountain Klek about which there is the most fascinating mythology . . . Plus a faery tale festival (and that is so me).  Also, I'm fairly certain that Ogulin is where my family is from, so it would be nice to visit.

Barbados: No particular town, just along the coast somewhere . . . And I don't really have a reason other than the main character from one of my favorite childhood books was from Barbados.  It just seems like a nice place.

London, England: Okay, I know I've already been there, but I'd like to visit without getting the plague and being forced to wander the streets like a zombie.  It seemed like a nice place, but I wasn't able to fully enjoy it because of my aforementioned case of the plague.

Ireland: Maybe County Cork or County Kerry or really anywhere.  I like the sea, so the coast would be nice, but whatever.  I'd be thrilled just to be in the county.  Though I may have simply read too many Nora Roberts books (many of which are set in Ireland, or have protagonists that are Irish/of Irish decent).  I just have to be sure to avoid it if I'm pregnant, because I have no wish to be murdered by their idiot medical system if something goes wrong.

New Zealand: Just 'cause.  Okay, okay, it's because of Xena, the Lord of the Rings films, and no snakes.

China: Because the history of the country is so cool and I'm learning the language (or one of them).

Iceland: Because it just seems . . . awesome.

That's all I can really think of right now.  I'm sure I could probably add more, like pretty much all of the Scandinavia or more tropical islands or wherever, but, truth, a simple two week vacation to any of the countries/cities listed above would sustain me for years.

20 August 2014

Moving Forward, Staying Still

First off, I want to say thank you to all my friends and family for your support in the wake of last weeks post.  I'm so very glad that I have people who care about me in my life, however peripheral.  That said, please, please stop sending me suicide prevention hotline numbers.  I assure you that I'm not suicidal.  I'm just massively unhappy with the path my life is currently on.  That doesn't mean I want to die.

My mother, she with a psychology degree, says that depression is just anger turned inwards.  I get that.  It makes sense to me.  Since I fluctuate between raging at the world and at myself, it makes sense to me.  It's just that I don't know how to fix this: my life.  I don't know how to find success and happiness.  I can't seem to do anything but fail, and it makes me bitter.  How do you get a job?  Or even a job interview?  I'm closing in on 700 resumes sent or applications filled and have only gotten two interviews.  I try, but no one is interested in giving me a chance.

I've applied for jobs that I'm perfectly qualified for - jobs that seemed like they were made just for me - and nothing.  I've applied for jobs that I'm overqualified for, and nothing.  I've applied for jobs that I'm under-qualified, and, of course, nothing.  There are only so many ways I can change my resume.  So many times it can be rewritten.  I keep trying and I keep failing.  Again and again and again and again.  I don't know what to do.  I don't know what else to do.  Is there something in me that's lacking?  Something other people can see, but I can't?

What do I have to do to get a full time job?

I'm not sure that I believe that it will ever happen.  And then what do I have?  Nothing.  Useless degrees and many thousands of dollars of student debt.  I can't afford a life.  

I'm so ready for this summer to be over.  Autumn needs to come and bring with it crisp air and cool rains to wash away the mess the summer has left in it's wake.

I don't know what I'm going to do with my life.  I need some kind of plan, some structure.  I thought the library would give that to me.  I could make my career, find my place . . . The truth is, I've been questioning that assumption all along.  For all that I would be a fantastic librarian, for all that I spent tens of thousands of dollars getting a degree that would allow me to move up in the field (provided anyone gave me a chance to get out there), for all that I've invested my time and energy and spent my spirit, I've questioned . . . From the beginning I've questioned if this was the right path for me. 

I want it to be.  I would love to work in a library in a librarian position, as a professional, as an integral part of my community.  And I love libraries, I do, but I don't fit.  I don't know why, but I don't.  I wish I did.  It would be so much easier, but when, of late, has anything been easy?

The thing is: what else can I do?  What. Else. Can. I. Do?  What else can I do?

That's the crux of my problem: I don't know.  I don't know what to do.  I don't know what else I can do?  I just know I can't stay here.  Stagnant.  I've got to move forward with my life, and I don't know how.  I need to find a job, and I don't know how.

I suppose I'll have to figure it out, because I can't stay here.  I can't.

It should be an interesting journey.

12 August 2014

Drama. Heartache. I'm so done.

Sometimes I wish I could just burn my life to the ground and scatter the ashes to the winds.  Or cut ties, walk away from everything, begin again.  No sick and helpless father (though he's out of the hospital now and still has both feet/legs!).  No massive student debt ($48,000+).  No crappy infighting and bullying at the library.  No annoying underemployment.  No frantic, fruitless job hunt.  I could be/find something novel, something new.  I could find my place without the weight of everything dragging me down.

I imagine myself as a of the hero in one of the fantasy novels I love so much: wanderer, poet, mage, bard, adventurer, lover, dreamer, warrior, witch, princess, thief.  Brave and strong and smart.  Wild and wily.  Have you ever noticed that they don't need funds?  That they can walk away from or stab their enemies?  Have you noticed how everything works out for them - these heroes of my faery tales?  Somehow, everything works out.  It must, otherwise it wouldn't be a good story.

Life isn't a story.  It sure as hell isn't a faery tale.  And I'm not sure that anything's going to work out for me.

I'm so tired of bad luck.  I'm so tired of failure.  I'm so tired of thinking I'm moving forward only to find myself further back than when I started.  I'm tired of not being told what I'm supposed to do at work, then getting in trouble when I don't do it.  And I'm tired of platitudes, and "it gets better"s, and false reassurance, and "at least you don't live in (whatever 3rd world hellhole is fashionable at the moment)"s.  I'm tired of "it could be worse."  I know it could be worse, but it's pretty damn bad now.

I almost walked out of the library tonight.  That's one of two things I've never done at any of my jobs: I've never quit without giving at least a months notice and I've never been fired.  But I was ready to walk out, go home, and never return.  My boss actually talked me out of it.  She was right when she pointed out that it would damage my future career.  It would, but I'm not really sure I have a future career to damage.  I have a couple of meaningless, expensive pieces of paper that ideally should make me employable, but haven't seemed to help me at all.  I have a constant headache and tears in my eyes every single night, but especially when I leave the library lately.  I have a brain that replays the bad parts of my day, my life, over and over and over again keeping me from getting to sleep until I pass out by way of pure exhaustion.  I have a desire to cut myself, something that is so fucking cliche and upsetting to me, something I haven't done in over a decade.  I have an almost pathological fear of going to work, and the beginnings of a need to avoid libraries from now until the end of time.

Which sucks because I truly love libraries.  And for the most part I love my job.  I LOVE helping people find books, answering questions, doing research.  I love thinking up programming ideas and learning about new trends and conceptualizing my ideal library.  I love making pathfinders and study aids.  There is a comfort for me in libraries, but it's slipping away because of stupid internal politics and a fucking bully of a supervisor.

And I hate it.  I hate that I hate going to work now.  I hate that I feel underutilized and unappreciated. It just compounds, you know?  It just keeps getting worse.  I'm so stressed and upset and it seems like nothing is going my way.  Nothing IS going my way.  All my family drama is stacked on top of my professional failures is stacked on top of my general depressed person depression, and that twisted layer cake is topped with this new work bullshit.  Something's gotta give.  I just can't do it anymore.  I'm having nightmares, night terrors, again.  I woke myself up screaming and tearing into my arms the other night with my fingernails.  I can't do this anymore.  I feel sick inside.  Rotted.

Knowing that I'm not the most stable, mentally, at the moment, and not in the best frame of mind to make decisions, I'm going to give it a couple of weeks - until the end of the month.  Then I'm probably going to quit my job.  I hope that something comes up before that.  That somehow, miraculously, one of the many, many, many places to which I've applied gives me chance.  It would be better that way, easier.  With my luck, though . . . 

I wish I could just walk away from it all.  Disappear.  Go on some grand and magical adventure, and return home triumphant, if I return home at all.  Life's not that neat though.  It's messy and awful and painful.  There is no "better."  There is only the same or worse.  Or at least that's the way it's been for me for my life.  And I know from trying that there's no way for me to change it.  I endure.

05 August 2014

So this is happening

Yesterday morning my dad was taken to the ER.  He was in bad, bad shape: vomiting, sweating, pain, etc., etc.  We thought that maybe it was a heart attack.  We were wrong.  I don't know whether to be grateful for that or not.

He was admitted to the hospital around 6:00 a.m.  Shortly thereafter he complained that his left leg felt like it was swollen and it was going numb.  The idiot doctor ignored his complaints saying that it was just because he was laying on his back.  Later he was unable to move his toes and some of the nurses said his leg was cold to the touch, the idiot doctor still insisted that it was because he way laying on his back.  We, his family, thought this sounded pretty stupid.  My mom told the idiot doctor that laying on his back really didn't seem like a realistic explanation for a numb leg and the inability to wiggle his toes.  The idiot doctor replied testily, "What do you think it is?"  Like someone with no medical training could diagnose something.  Mom suggested a stroke or something.  She was dismissed out of hand.

And to be fair it wasn't a stroke . . .

This morning my dad couldn't move his foot.  His lower calf and foot were purple, no pulse could be found.  Blood clots blocking off circulation.  A vascular surgeon was called in and an emergency thrombectomy (removal of blood clots) was performed.  Clots and scar tissue was removed from his groin to just below his knee.  The surgeon couldn't get into his lower calf and foot without risking my dad's life and (quite literally) limb.  When he came to tell us about how my dad did in the surgery, the surgeon kept saying, "I didn't want to risk his life to save his leg."

Right now we're playing a waiting game.  The surgeon managed to save my dad's leg for now.  We don't know yet whether he'll be able to use that foot.  It's quite likely that if he is able to use his foot, there will be partial paralysis and numbness in it.  And the real question is not whether his lower (at least) leg will have to be amputated, but when it will have to be amputated.

I guess we'll just have to see how it goes.

19 July 2014

Learning how to deal

So, I figure I've been dealing with a fairly serious case of depression for several years now.  And by "several years" I mean over a well over a decade.  Considering that I'm only 33, that's a pretty huge chunk of my life.  I've not been formally diagnosed, of course.  I live in Kansas, and fall in that not-so-sweet spot that precludes me from social services including mental health provided by the state - I make too much money, you see, but I don't make enough money to, you know, pay for that stuff myself.  If Kansas had accepted medicaid expansion . . . Well, we won't go into that.

Anyway, my depression.  I'm 99.999% sure that depression is a problem for me, one that I haven't been very good at dealing with.  I withdraw, compulsively buy books, sleep way too much or not enough, I have no energy for anything.  Sometimes it's worse, sometimes it's better, but it's always there; and, from what I've read, it's fairly typical, my depression.  Textbook, even.

I've never really recognized it as a problem.  I knew I had it, but I thought I had it handled.  I mean, I didn't think I suffered from it.  I am not now and have never been suicidal, you know?  Other people had it worse.  Lately, I've been thinking that I've been looking at it all wrong.  I have suffered.  I haven't been suicidal, but I haven't been living.  There is so much that I want to do that I haven't done, and I think it's because of my depression.  I've let it take over my life.  It has been my life or at least most of it since I was in my late teens.  Hell, it conducted a hostile takeover in my early twenties and has been the driving force of my life since then.  I think I can safely say that it's behind the sad fact that I haven't actually done anything in the last twelve or thirteen years.  There was a time I actively pursued my goals, but it surely hasn't been any time lately.

A couple of weeks ago I had something of a slow epiphany.  It'd been building for years, but with the death of my cousin it really kind of struck home.  Life's too short for me to waste it like I have been.  I need to get out in the world and do things.  Live, you know?  I need to find a way to stop being miserable and move.

I say that this realization has been has been building, but that's not the entire truth.  I've known it for a while now.  It's one of the reasons I went back to school a few years ago and got not one but two degrees (a bachelor's and a master's).  My degrees are not enough, obviously.  I need to continue moving forward in my life.  I know what I need to do, I'm not really sure how to do it, but I'm smart, I can learn.

I have goals.  The same goals I've had for a long while.  Some I've had since I was a child, like becoming a working writer.  Others are fairly recent, like losing weight.  I've basically proven to myself that I can't be trusted to work on these goals one at a time.  I'll come up with a way to put everything off that way, and time is so short.  I've got to bundle things.  Work in stages, maybe, but work at it all, and focus as much as I can.  I've come up with a schedule of sorts, so that I can work towards these goals.  I think I'm going to have to be fairly strict with myself for a while, until I fall into the habit, or back into the habit, of doing things I have never done, or haven't done in a long, long time.

And things are going to be slow for a while as I find my footing.  But things are going to get done, which is the point, and more than what's happening in my life now.  I'm going to learn how to deal.  I'm going to learn how to live.

18 May 2014

The point of no return

I interviewed for and didn't get another library job the other day.  It's frustrating and stupid that I can't find a full time job in a library.  I'll keep applying, but more and more I'm feeling like the entire search is futile.  I wonder if anyone anywhere will be willing to give me a chance.  It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't desperately need a job.  With a decent pay check and medical insurance.  I think that here soon I'm going to start applying for jobs outside of libraries, though I don't know that that will be much better.  I don't have much in the way of marketable skills outside of books and organization.

And the thing is, I really, really want to work in a library.  Specifically a public library.  If I get a full time job outside the library I'll never have a chance to go back.  Not without starting completely over: first, as a volunteer; then, a part time employee.  And I don't think I'll ever be able to afford that.

Not unless I get married and my husband can support me, and that's probably never going to happen.  Truth?  I don't think I'll ever get married.  I may never date or have sex again, let alone make a lifetime romantic connection.

I have to be able to support myself, especially because I expect to forever be alone.

And that's okay.  I can be alone.  I can't say that I'll enjoy it always or even be 100 percent happy, but I'll be content.  It's better than being miserable because of another person.  Except, I worry that I'll never be able to support myself.  

And I'm worth so much more than my current jobs.  I should be able to support myself.

I feel like I've given up so much already.  I'm beginning to accept that I'll never find love.  I'll never have a partner in life or children, and that's beginning to be okay with me.  Sad, but okay.  I don't need that, not really.  I can find other things to do with my time.  And that's huge, don't you think?  I don't want to give up the library.  I don't want to give up on being a librarian.  It's too much.  It's everything.

But something's got to give.  And being a librarian is the last thing I have.  If something doesn't come up on that front soon, then I'll have to give up that dream as well.

And then what?  Then, what?

I don't know.  I don't know what else there is for me out there.  I'll be traveling blind and ignorant.  I don't like that thought, but I'll soon have no other choice.

I think I'm going to give it through the end of the year.  That's, to my mind, pushing it, but I really want this to work out for me.  After the year's end, if I still don't have a job . . .  I don't know.  I guess we'll see.  But that will be when my final dream dies.

04 March 2014

Birthday thoughts

Today is my birthday!  Awesome of awesomeness.  At exactly 11:27 p.m., 33 years ago today, I was born. Isn't it neat to think of it that way?

I love my birthday.  In fact, I celebrate it for several weeks.  I started this years celebration about a week and a half ago, and don't plan on stopping until at least the end of the month.  But technically it is just this one day, March 4th.

I know there's this stereotype of a woman freaking out on her birthday because she's getting older (and I guess less valuable to society/men/something?), but that's not me.  Never really has been.  Long ago, in my late teens, early twenties, I may have been unhappy - deeply, deeply unhappy - on my birthday, but that wasn't because I was getting older.  No, it was because I expected my birthday to be something it never was: magical.  You know, a happy day all about me.  And I had very few happy days when I was that age.  Why would my birthday be any different.  I've learned now to take things in stride and celebrate many small happiness', and, most importantly, not expect my birthday to be super wonderful.  It's going to be a day, just like any other day, and is only special if I make it that way.  So I do.

There are disappointments.  For instance, I had planned on visiting my friend Leanne this week.  That had to be put off because of weather concerns.  Nature obviously doesn't realize that my birthday is supposed to have nice spring weather!  Actually, reflecting on the day, it did.  Today was nice.  More snow is in the forecast for tomorrow.  And when we cancelled my trip, Leanne and I, a few days ago, we didn't know that it would be so nice.  Reschedule for spring!

My mom took half a day off work to take me out to lunch, and one of my brothers accompanied me to the movies.  We saw the Robocop reboot.  Probably the most terrifying PG-13 movie I've ever seen.  Not for the gore, there was a disappointing amount of gore compared to the original, but for the political implications.  Yikes!  My other brother and his wife are coming this Sunday to celebrate.  That's nice.  Dan, my father, slept most of the day, but since he often annoys me I don't hold it against him.

This year, I've decided to add something to my birthday celebrations: I'm writing out a list of goals to attain over the next year.  Kind of like New Year's resolutions, but I actually plan on working on these.  Some because I have to, and others because I want to.  My list of goals follows, in no particular order:

  • Hit my 10,000 steps a day goal.
  • Study Chinese (Mandarin) an hour a day, five days a week (at least).
  • Yoga! Or some other stretchy exercises. I seriously need to work on my flexibility.
  • Weights and aerobics a couple times a week (at least).  I need to work on my strength and endurance.  I've noticed that I'm depressingly weak, at least compared to where I was a few years ago.  
  • Eat less sugar.
  • Eat more fruits and vegetables.
  • Keep a regular blog schedule for my various blogs (but especially my professional blog).
  • Write a novel.  I have several ideas, and I've been threatening one for years now.  Time to put up or shut up.
  • Get a full time job that pays enough for me to live.
  • Stop spending all my money - this will be hard until I get a decent job, I don't have that much money in the first place and most of it goes to gas and food.
  • Clean bedroom entirely.
  • Paint bedroom.
  • Quit smoking.
  • Lose weight - I'd like to drop a few dress sizes by my next birthday.
  • Start doing something other than work, home, work, home, work.  Find some activity to enjoy with others.
  • Make new friends.
  • Hang out with old friends more (and better).
  • Read 150 books this year, reviewing at least half of them on my professional blog.
  • Date
  • Sex
The last two are going to be especially tricksy, I think.  I've gotten very used to being alone, and though I may whine about it, I would prefer to be alone than to be with someone just because.  It's just awkward being a single 30-something woman.  It's expected that we have a partner.  I found this gem of a blog post that sums up how I feel about being single (emphasis mine):
I would like to clarify that I wholeheartedly believe in partnership, but I think that my own happiness doesn't fully depend on whether I have a partner.  Losing sight of that runs the risk of anchoring yourself to the wrong person, just for the sake of not ending up being this so-called unlovable bundle of damaged goods.  Being with the wrong person, experience has taught me, is far lonelier than actually being alone.
Still, I would like to find someone, which means dating.  Then trusting someone enough to have sex.  What can I say?  I've got issues.  But, then, the kind of sex that I really enjoy . . . You need to trust your partner.  I need to trust my partners regardless, so, yeah.  We'll se how that goes.

Anyway, pursuing my goals will not be too difficult.  Many are connected on fundamental levels.  Today's my last day to enjoy cigarettes.  That's been decided for a while now.  Luckily, I have the next several days off from work, so the public won't have to suffer with me as nicotine leaves my system and Hulk-like rage temporarily enters.

I'm applying for another position at my current job, one that's full time with benefits.  Pays better too. They like me there, so hopefully I'll be in the running.  I worry only that I've been fairly vocal about wanting a job in a library (and this is the Museum), so they may think that I won't be worth hiring because I may leave.  I can't guarantee that I won't leave, but I can guarantee that I won't leave for a while - probably several years.  We'll see.

Gifts (so far):

  1. Michael Kors Sexy Amber perfume from my mother.  Nice smells, appropriate name.
  2. Thor: The Dark World from my brother, Eric.  Tom Hiddleston needs to call me.  Or Loki does, anyway.
  3. A library cart business card holder from my mother.  Weird gift, but cute.
  4. Panties, also from my mother.  I guessed socks, but was told socks are only a Christmas gift.  Apparently panties are for birthdays.
  5. A week off work from me.  Because, duh.
  6. Lunch from Mom.
  7. Movie from Mom, but accompanied by Eric.
More to come.

Also, a big "Happy Birthday" to Kitten, whose blog I follow.  It's fun to find someone who shares your birthday, you know?

11 January 2014

What I've been going through lately

This is from a letter I wrote to a friend on the 28th of December.  
I've been feeling really disconnected lately.  I don't know what it is, maybe the season . . . Regardless, I've been all at ends.  If you know what I mean.  Just feeling lost.  It's annoying, but I don't quite know what to do about it.
Even now.  Even now I am depressed.  Not sad, but smothered.   Like I'm being weighed down by styrofoam.  I guess that's the best description for it.  Yes, it feels as awkward as it sounds.  There's a certain amount of hopelessness that goes with it, and I wonder if it will ever change, if I will ever feel the sky again.  Intellectually, I know that this is a temporary state, that I just have to muddle through and I'll eventually make it to the other side and drop my burden.  Emotionally, I fear it will never change.
 I look back on my life, my history, and it seems like I have always been this way.  I look forward, to my future, and it's hard to see an end.  The things I want: the life, the love, and everything that goes with life and love seem so far out of reach.  Taunting, rather than encouraging.  Sometimes I despair, but not that much.  Mostly I try to lose myself.  Not think of it.
Depression sucks.  I consider my depression to be a relatively mild form of it, and it still sucks.  It is not all-encompassing, and doesn't narrate my life, but it does color me.  There is no concrete sadness in my depressive state, there's no concrete emotion of any kind.  My emotions flutter by as quick and soft as the wings of an insect: here, then gone again.  Nothing is stable and nothing lasts.  It would be discombobulating, if I could be discombobulated.  I don't cry.  I don't gnash my teeth.  I don't moan.  I don't contemplate ending it all.  Mostly I just sit on the couch with a cat on my lap, watching too much TV and sleeping too little. 

It's always a struggle for me when I begin to pull myself out.  My moods become sharper and more pronounces.  I laugh.  I cry.  I worry that I don't do either enough.  I sleep more: 1) because I'm catching up from my marathon of sleeplessness, and 2) because it's physically exhausting to feel feelings.  I try to be more physically active too, because it's so easy to fall back into the habit of sitting like a lump.  Actually, it's so easy to fall back into the habit of being depressed.

Because for me, it's a habit.  Kind of.

Whatever.  I just mean it's an easy place for me to stay.

I don't want to stay there any more.  I'm at that point in working my way out.

So that's what I've been dealing with.

Later.