I’m not going to sugar coat it.  Christmas afternoon was eerily similar to a September day over a year ago. Thankfully my day ended differently than my September experience.  Instead of hitting rock bottom, I hit a very long run followed by a very quiet evening with a very close friend and a good movie.  Stanley, as usual, I owe you.  It was especially helpful to hear how he’s gotten through quite a few holidays alone and that now it’s almost easy for him. 

Even though Kevin is perpetually perky (and it’s so very annoying), I knew he was struggling too.  He had to have been because for him to run 10 minute miles on purpose means something.  I used every ounce of strength I had to get to the run.  After the effort it took to get out of bed, cry my way to the stadium, and pull it together before Kevin showed up and laughed at my puffy face, the run seemed easy in comparison.  The run course was unfortunate as we ran by The Camel, the VMFA, and some downtown landmarks I had just visited with Philip.  I was missing all my close friends on that run, but especially him.  At this point, anyone who makes the days easier to swallow is a good friend of mine. 

My sister sent me an amazing Christmas present.  It’s a necklace from Waxing Poetic and one of the charms on it is this one:

My friend Christina sent me a necklace too - with a stone that was all about recovery and inner strength.  I need to wear both of them at the same time.  Between the two I feel like the entire last year is synopsized into silver and stone.  Running, strength, friends, family.  I’m clinging onto all of them.

I’ve been struggling with New Year’s weekend for quite a while.  I finally figured out what I’m going to do and it feels right.  I might even do the Resolution Run for “real” instead of for fun - meaning, I’m going to run a hard 4 miles.  The 5K Saturday can be my fun run, especially since it’s going to be followed with mimosas and brunch.  My weekend is not at all what I thought it was going to be, but I’m adapting and still working hard to let go.  I’ve learned a lot from Jennifer and now when I’m faced with a situation that feels terrible, I can see the lesson in it.  In this case, it’s that I have no control over others, or where they are in their life, or what is important to them.  At the end of the day, we are all very much alone and you have to stand on your own two feet or spend your days face down in the mud.  No one is able to hold my hand 100% of the time, no matter how much they want to.  I’m FINALLY okay with it.  I know that I can curl up and shriek and cry and hurl things around because I also know it’s going to pass and tomorrow something amazing will happen. 

Someone asked me today how I was surviving.  She looked so sympathetic, like someone had just run over my cat.  I was taken aback.  My life is supposed to be pretty good now.  I got what I “wanted”, so therefore all should be well.  I took a deep breath and said, “I’m not surviving.  I’m doing great - and survival sounds like drudgery to me, so I choose to not think about it as survival.”  (I actually got to use drudgery in a sentence - go English majors!!!)  I was probably lying, but I resent pity and I don’t like feeling my weakness is painted over my face like Ke$ha’s bad glitter. 

I knew my blog posts were going to be depressing (reading drudgery!) this week, and I’m okay with it.  I want to be able to look back next year and say, “Good God woman.  Did you not see through the fog that life is exactly as it should be, and everything’s gonna be ok?  You are so short-sighted sometimes . . . ”  I’ll be chuckling at my depression and fatalistic views while watching Lily paint a masterpiece and Arden rock out on her piano while penning her first novella with her toes.  The warm arms around me will belong to my Wall Street slash Writer slash Recovering Emo slash Social Media Junkie and the chai will be perfect, I’ll be six inches taller and rocking a beautiful pair of Blahniks I paid cash for.  Ho ho ho, I’ll say to the me of right now.  And you were even worried that things would work out!  Aha hahahaha.

Seriously though, I’m okay with hanging on by my fingernails.  Each time I make it through one of the valleys, I’m amazed I’ve done it when I stop being so scared I was in that place to begin with. 

In a very literal way, running saved my life today.  Each one of the 10 miles I did put me farther away from despair and closer to just plain ol’ apathy.  It is a good thing running isn’t a person, because if it was, I’d have to leave a bar tab open for it for the rest of eternity. 

Big setback today, but I was prepared for it.  Shout out to Jennifer for making me plan out my Christmas Day after the kids left to the minute - as usual, she was right.  Also, note to self:  when Jennifer suggests that something might be “difficult’ for me, pay attention and DON’T DO IT. 

Help comes in weird forms when you least expect it.  My feet hurt, and so does my left leg, but my brain is sighing with relief that I’ve almost made it through my first Christmas in this new iteration.  Let’s hope this one was the worst because I now understand why some people loathe, dread, and despise the holidays.  There is nothing more annoying than family and friends in love with each other all huggy and cheerful when you just want them to choke on their fruitcake. 

At some point I’ll blog about the last two days.  Don’t ask me about pictures because there aren’t any. I wasn’t up to it, and I really don’t want to remember this year.  In the meantime, I’m happy to say that it’s almost over, my kids had a good Christmas, and I am still here. 

Occasionally I can be concise.  So here I go.

It’s been less than 3 times since my infamous meltdown that I’ve had terrible, awful, soul-wrenching nights.  I had one last night, but I’m here today. 

This morning I skipped my run.  Everyone said it was okay to do that, but I still felt weird.  I got the girls off to school and went back to bed.  It was 58 degrees in my room, because this house is just *so* well insulated.  Thora got on my feet.  I went to the dark space where thoughts go away. 

As my therapist texted me last night, she reminded me that my fears of ending back where I was (in a hospital) only makes them worse.  I tried to suspend the fears.  I realized, as I sat with my feelings and allowed them to wash over me, that I have new coping skills and I was unconsciously using them.  I sent John a text.  I tried calling Philip.  I sent an email to Theresa.  I drank tea, finally gave in and took a pill for the anxiety, and petted the dog.  Even though it felt like the attack wasn’t going to end, I heard my friends telling me that it was going to end.  They reassured me that I have the skills necessary to cope now, and I wasn’t going to spontaneously combust with sadness and fear.  They were right.

This morning, Theresa pounded on my door until I opened it.  She made my bed so I couldn’t get back in it, made my kids’ beds, and picked up stuff around the house.  She brought my favorite chai with her and shouted, “It’s TnT today!!!!”  (Theresa and Tea).  I felt surrounded, and although I had to go through all of the stuff I did last night, in the back of my mind I knew I was going to make it. 

It’s a big victory for me, even though I am still raw as hell and reluctant to face this weekend.  I guess what’s victorious about it is that even though I am not feeling great, and still want to go back to bed, I’m not going to and instead I’m using all the things I’ve learned in the past year and half to deal with my horrible mood swing.  The stars in the sky last night, the sound of my wind chimes, the amazing dog I have, and the sound of my friend’s voices rallying behind me - all of those things I’m grateful for. 

It’s close enough to winter where I feel justified hibernating.  Today I am heading to a yoga class, then it’s back to the cave.  The cave has wireless and kids in it, so my hibernation won’t be the usual sleepytime bears enjoy. 

I’ve never been in this mode before.  Part of my personality - and sometimes I even like this part - is to be open and willing to give of myself.  This new person, unfamiliar to me, is not open, and not very giving, either.  I finally understand what friends mean when they say they are closed down.  It feels so foreign to me - perhaps it’s just the “Closed Til Spring” sign hanging around my neck. 

For the first time, the amount of people I truly trust can be counted on one hand.  I used to always assume people were trustworthy until they proved otherwise; I have now reversed this theory. 

I don’t think this is a bad thing.  I’ve had a cynical nature regarding myself since I took my first breath as a baby; applying my cynical nature to others is definitely a way to weed out those who probably aren’t worth my time or energy. 

After an interesting conversation with my sister yesterday, it finally clicked with me that honesty isn’t the same as self-awareness.  I had an experience recently with a friend who prides himself on being honest and direct.  That’s great, except being honest from moment to moment isn’t that difficult.  You have an emotion - you express the emotion - therefore you are honest.  What I am trying to do is actually ASSESS my needs, wants and desires before I express an emotion.  If I don’t know who I am or what I want, honesty is a joke.  It’s as fleeting as the actual emotion.  Unfortunately, I’ve met quite a few people over the last 2 years who need to do less talking and more introspection.  It amazes me that all around me marriages fall apart, yet most leaving the marriages (or those left) don’t take 5 minutes alone thinking about the reason it broke in the first place. 

I’m at fault too.  I’m probably worse.  Not only am I direct and usually honest, I am aware of my motivations and my desires.  My desires are not always in line with my needs - and I define needs as what is healthy and necessary to live a good life.  Some days I really want the greasiest cheeseburger I can find; those days I probably should pick the vegetarian colon cleanse option. 

I’ve been amazingly lucky to have some of the people in my life that reside here today. I’ve also made incredibly poor choices with friends and relationships.  Because I wasn’t self-aware when I got married, there was a lot of collateral damage.  I’ve exposed myself to people who are just like I was back then - and I am their collateral damage.  I’ve had more than one experience where I’ve been thanked for helping someone figure out what they really wanted; that’s great, except I don’t really want to be a textbook.  I’m still just a girl, and relationships make one vulnerable.  When others use me as a Psych 101 class, I end up empty and slightly more dead. 

Some members of my family don’t like it when I blog about my struggles.  This will probably be another post that embarrasses them.  I don’t write for anyone here except me, and it’s been incredibly helpful viewing my entries - especially from the last year - and seeing the patterns.  I know that the bad times will turn into the good which will bounce around again like the stock market.  I know that everything, including extreme happiness, is fleeting.  It helps me get through the ugly times, and it helps me appreciate every second of the good ones as well.  It reminds me who is truly important in my life, and what is not. 

As usual, it took me hitting a complete bottom before I am able to say I’ve had enough and wave the white flag of mercy. It’s okay to be all about me for awhile.  I don’t have to give to anyone except those that deserve it.  I can’t save anyone but myself. I don’t have the emotional energy or fortitude to do so, anyway.  I can’t rescue all the lost dogs of the world, and I can’t continue to open myself up so that others have the opportunity to kick me in the heart.  It doesn’t matter if it’s intentional or not.  It’s okay - at least for a period of time - to truly hang the “closed” sign on the cave, hunker down with my fellow bears, and take a breather. 

This house is less than half the size as my old house, and although I tried - really tried - to be organized, the piles are growing.  I clean up one morning and by evening I’m already staring slack-jawed at a new pile of stuff.  This evening, I crawled into bed - where I currently am hiding - to find a half-eaten cheese stick, an apple core, and something dark and sticky and as yet unidentified (I think it might have been a raisin - once). 

The food comes from the girls - I had an afternoon where I had to trust them to entertain themselves, and to be fair, if they’d have asked me, “Mommy, can I chew up and spit out a bunch of apples and cheese sticks on your bed?” I most likely would have answered, “Why, sure, dumplins’ . . . have a good time.”

Whenever I am overwhelmed, I chant my writer’s creed.  These bad days or bad experiences will be SUCH good fodder for my book - the one I’ve been writing in my head since I was 8.  This book, in reality, will never exist, but I’m always using my trainwreck of a life to add another chapter.  This book already makes War and Peace look like a short story. 

I realized tonight that the level of chaos in my new home directly relates to the level of chaos in my brain.  The house is either frighteningly clean - and even breathing on the table wrong makes me cranky - or like it is tonight.  There are dirty clothes on my hope chest (which, ironically, is empty - literary illusions much?), running shoes and gear thrown around, apples rolling around on the kitchen table, yet to be sorted into piles to give away.  The dog needs a bath.  I managed the laundry yesterday, and managed to fold it today, but it’s in piles running almost the entire length of the family room.  I had a to-do list today; one thing was done.  I spent at least 2 hours trying to motivate myself to get out of my pajamas and do something productive but frankly, I failed. 

Theresa rescued me from having to cook dinner and took care of my children’s nutritional needs as well as mine.  The kids tormented each other with a fake spider while I tried to hold it together.  It’s been a year now - shouldn’t things be dramatically better?  They are, I know this - but the bad days are just still so very achingly bad that I forget all the progress I’ve made.  Everything is more effort than I have.  When provoked to answer a question I don’t want to, I’m not a nice person.  And let’s just be honest.  Sometimes I give way beyond the point of what’s good for me, and I usually don’t realize it until I’m already bleeding out. 

We came home from Theresa’s house.  I looked down at the Sweaty Bands Theresa had sold me, knowing full well they would never make me look as cute running as I hoped.  I took them straight into my room and placed them on my bed.  I fed the dog, got the girls into weather-appropriate pajamas, sucked it up and turned on the heat, knowing the bill would cost a lot, washed my face, and took my medication.  I kissed them goodnight, held them and loved on them.  The few times they were home when I cried, I hid in the laundry room pretending to organize the pantry.  I think they are still like animals, and can sense when something is off.  My poor kids have sensed something’s been off for a long time now.  I thought about my running, and for the first time since I started, I didn’t want to.  Even if I could have left the kids alone, I wouldn’t have. I was too tired.  Sweaty Bands or not, I’ll be out there tomorrow acting “as if” and faking my way through a run and hoping that the next goal - the next race - will make me finally realize I can do “it” - whatever that “it” is

I’m angry.  Every time I think I’m strong and out of the woods, some scorned ice skater comes out with a baton and whacks the hell out of my legs or knocks the wind out of me with an expert backhand.  To be fair, I get up much quicker these days.  There’s a chance by the time the toothbrush hits my gums in the morning I will be human again.  But I can’t explain how scared I feel when I have days like today and it seems like I’m still perilously close to the edge I experienced last year.  It’s not fair.  I deserve better for myself. 

I’m wondering if I can keep the piles in my house contained, the piles in my brain will go away too.  Maybe the key to all of this has simply been that ability to use shelving and compartments and doors to keep the ugliness away.  Or perhaps I can skip the work and just hire a cleaning lady, and she can do it all for me while I hide in my bedroom on sheets that smell of string cheese and apples.