Skip to main content

The false hope of Home Free

Either work is ridiculously stressful right now or something has shifted in my brain that has turned formerly mountable things into insurmountable ones. (I'm giving you the side eye, menopause.) I have gone from smacking my to-do list down like I'm a spandex-encased pro wrestler (Tell 'em Large Marge sent ya) to dashing behind the partition in my doorless office so nobody can see the tears rolling down my face. More than once, I haven't even had time to make that dash, and I've sprung a weakling-leak right in front of a coworker who does not have anything to do with what's vexing me, which just intensifies the humiliation and self-loathing. Plus, two real live panic attacks, which are new to me and have me searching my brain for the UNSUBSCRIBE button. The worst of it all, though, is noticing that my very occasional intrusive thoughts have shifted from "it would solve a lot of things if that semi would suddenly hork over into my lane" to "golly, I'm on a lot of different meds right now, I wonder which and how many I would need to take to close out this mediocre attempt at a life." 

Don't freak out, I'm on top of it, not in danger, have talked to my doctor and I'm doing the things I need to do to claw out of this particular shit-pit. It's just so damn disheartening. I wanted to be over this. 

Logically, I know it's primarily chemical. I stopped being able to get the magic weight-loss meds and the scale has started to tell me that I'm paradoxically a gainer and a loser. Three days in a row in September when work stuff made it impossible for me to get to the gym at 5:00 AM like I used to morphed into three months, so I lost that morning endorphin-shower that used to set me straight for the rest of the day. Last week, for no apparent reason other than the bone-deep belief that there is no way the man I love could possibly legitimately want to be with a pet-hair covered, overemotional blobfish like me, I accused him of being dishonest with me even though there was zero evidence of such a thing. And then made it worse by taking my game token off the board, telling him that I just couldn't do this, that I'm too broken, that I couldn't imagine a life where I'm not underwhelming, irritating, and tormenting him with my mediocrity for the rest of time. Fortunately, he didn't bolt, he showed me grace and patience that I did not deserve, and we talked through it. And then my period started, which added some much-needed hormonal context, but didn't make me feel any better. 

It will get better. I know it will. I can't off myself because I will be dogdamned if I leave those two spawn of mine on this earth with The Inseminator as their only parent. Dear Boss relies on me, and I can't put him in the position of making my memorial PowerPoint. Plus I've got a ton of stuff I still want to see and feel and do. I went to the gym yesterday and will go again tomorrow. I'm taking my meds, have set an appointment with a therapist, and my doctor is keeping a close eye on me. I will remind myself to be grateful, I will show myself the same grace and patience that my pumpkin has shown me, I will keep climbing towards the sunlight and not lose my footing by looking back. 

But I'll also allow myself to be miffed that there is no such thing as Home Free. That chronic clinical depression is never cured, that relationships take non-stop work, that I have to keep going to the gym, that even the best dogs eventually die. I'm still one lucky sumbitch, and the more I remember that, the less I'll see myself as a weepy blobfish searching for a Home Free that doesn't exist. 



 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Talking to the Dead

Look, I don't know if there's an afterlife. I don't know if souls continue when the meat expires. Talking on the phone is gross and should only be used to report deaths, but I tell you what - if I could find the digits to reach my friend Milo who died last year - I would have him on speaker begging him to sing his guinea pig song to me faster than my bra comes off when I get home from work nowadays. I'd share the link to James McMurtry's song " Long Island Sound " and eat up his reaction. I'd ask him where to go after devouring all the Travis McGee and Dave Robichaux novels.  I'd tell him I miss him. I'd tell him I love him.  Digital messaging would be ideal, because I'd really like to send my old high school friend C.Z., who died a few years ago, a link to the cheesy "Eye of the Tiger" video and poke fun at him for purchasing the trumpet sheet music in middle school, though I was a chum and helped him learn it.  Recently the Rock...
3 comments
Read more

Band of Brothers

My magnificent cousin Jim died unexpectedly this past October, and even though we met in person only once, we connected on social media back in 2010, and I quickly became his lifelong fan. Four months after his death and I still find myself drafting messages to him in my head, only to be gutted when I remember that he's not reachable anymore. Jim was brilliant, delightfully curious, interesting and interested, a fantastic writer, unfailingly kind, and I ended up loving him like a brother. Except he was easier to love than my actual brothers, because I didn't have a single bad memory with him.   My cousin Jim never once threw a dart with such force that it stuck in my back. He did not join the phalanx of my actual brothers with their actual BB guns on the front porch, awaiting the arrival of a sweet soft-spoken beau of mine in high school, and did not help deliver the pointed threats about what would happen if that shy, tender boy besmirched my honor.  He did not discover...
1 comment
Read more

Good grief

While I appreciate the idea of the whole 'rainbow bridge' thing, even typing those two words makes me feel like I'm a Precious Moments figurine - way too saccharine and hackneyed, like how everything nowadays is a 'journey' - weight loss, divorce, menopause, constipation. Not everything needs to be injected with meaning.  This past Wednesday, my youngest and I took Dottie the Elder, our 19 year old cat, to the vet so she could begin her next assignment. We had her euthanized, just with a different euphemism.  Dottie Kittaen Dottie was a good cat, and I've written about her before so will skip the obituary, but I am surprised that the removal of one 5 pound elderly feline could leave such a noticeable hole in the Pleasant Street compound.  The kid was understandably bereft, having known Dottie for as long as they can remember. I cried too, but most of what I felt was gratitude that we can do this for our pets when they're not having any more fun. Gratitude fo...
Post a Comment
Read more