Wednesday, December 30, 2009

The Eye of the Storm

The boy has taken up screaming at bedtime again.  I'm sure it's related to the many recent upheavals in his life, but I had so hoped this was behind us.  Tonight, he screamed for two and a half hours before finally collapsing into sleep, and the silence he left behind is deafening me with recrimination.  There must be something wrong with him, but even so it's my fault - I made him, and I haven't been able to figure out WHY he is like this, despite many a doctor's trip over the years.  How can anything ever feel like a success when this child so often feels like my worst failure.  I feel out of ideas and out of hope, and yet I was already so close to the bone, hopewise, that I can't feel the pain quite as much as usual.  Maybe hopelessness is the answer and not the question, something to be dealt with, not solved.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Shut up already

Why can't I just BE unhappy and shut up about it?  It doesn't make it better to blab, just gives temporary not-quite-relief that ends up being more shame, more humiliation, and a deep desire to have not spoken.  It hurts too much to stay quiet, but just like crying about physical pain, the pain isn't really affected by the noise.  I'm afraid if I'm quiet I'll slip slide surrender to the deeper quiet and get lost for good.  So I make a string of pointless words and hopeless queries and hold myself up on it like the magic feather or the emperor's clothes, trying not to look hard enough to see that nothing is holding me up at all, that I'm already falling.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Finding joy in the slow lane

We're snowed in, the house insulated and muzzled inside a snowglobe.  My daughter is fighting a cold and passed out on the couch.  I hear her snoring on one side and the little boys playing nicely for once on the other.  It is peaceful, quiet, Christmassy.  I have good friends, good kids, a good life.  The enforced slowness of the storm makes me realize that I need to slow down myself, need to not borrow trouble, need to not give so much attention to the ache in my chest that says I will always be alone, that I will never be understood.  The ache is real but it isn't everything, and it doesn't deserve the space it takes up in my head.  I will wrap it in cotton and shove it into a corner and take the good in what comes my way, even if it doesn't always come in the shape I think I want.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Floating

Things got worse but may be getting better, at least in some ways.  The semester is over, my mother's out of the hospital, other big bads seem to be taking at least a hiatus.  I feel like I've taken off too-tight pants, like I can breathe a little easier.  I'm trying to cultivate positive thinking, to hoarde a pile of reasons this struggle is worth it like nuts against the possibility of a long winter.  Perversely, I've found something new and utterly unnecessary to also fret about, but I'm trying to zen-think it out of the mainstream of negative thought.  I need to feng shui my brain, clear the clutter and let in the light.  I practice letting go and feel like I may be floating, however briefly, instead of exhaustingly treading water.

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Realism

I feel the inexorable tug of depression, the dark promise it holds to wrap me up in warm darkness.  I fight it by inches, never gaining on it but keeping it from swallowing me whole.  The hardest times are when I can't remember why the fight is worth it, when it seems that depression is not the pathology it has become but another word for realism.  This is my life.  There's no reason to expect it to get better, and it could certainly be worse.  Maybe the idea that happiness is achievable, even an entitlement, is the real pathology.  Why should I get happiness?  The biggest mistakes I've made were things I did in an effort to push back the bleakness and grab my piece of joy.  I think the better option may be to strive for acceptance rather than happiness.  This is it, this is all there is; and yet, I watch the people around me live their lives with passion and energy.  In my lighter moments, I look for hope in their example, but right now their efforts seem futile, their hopes sad in light of their inevitable frustration.

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Bitch, bitch, bitch

I am so over myself.  All I do is complain, and when I get tired of hearing myself whine out loud and bite my tongue, I still hear the litany in my head.  I don't even know what I want, what I expect to be different, what end I want to have in sight.  I need a lobotomy, or a week in a hotel with bad pay per view, or a winning lottery ticket, or a padded soundproof room.  I think I need a hiatus, but really?  That couldn't end well.  The last thing I need is the company of my own thoughts.