RealMental

Swimming in and out of clear thinking, feeling as if i am sinking.

I do not want to fully go to the place where the surroundings are dark, cold, and wet with sadness.

I must find the way out of this tricky terrain of blinding emotions, I must get in MOTION.

Hark!

I will move out of this place, I won’t stay.

Perhaps it is necessary for me in order to move on to the next chapter.

YES!

It’s time.

To move onward, to push forward.

To get the fuck back up.

I can and I will, my will is strong.

Falling, slipping, skinning my knees is to be expected but not enough of a reason to keep me down.

Look for me I’m still there, wave as I walk past.

Please allow me a moment to take you with me to see where I have been and in a way how it is that I am here in quite the way I am.

Journal Entry: April 30th, 2006-

What have I sacrificed and why have I done it?

Every day I sacrifice healing in trade for coping.  If I can just put off the tears for a few more minutes then I know I can make the bed, feed the children and laugh.  Ha ha, I am laughing, see.  If I sacrifice the coping, the day to day then I am trading for pain and sadness.  I am opening the door to such grief and heartache.  What if it doesn’y stop?  What if i drown in it all?  What if I work through everything only to discover what I fear the most is true?  What if it really is my fault?

My sacrifices are selfish although they appear to be about other people a lot of the time.  I watch my sister’s kids so she can heal.  I take my kids for a walk even though it hurts because I know they’ll have fun.   It goes on but ultimately I do it all to avoid the darkness.

The sacrifice of birthing was not my own.  It was no choice to be made by weary  minds and souls.  Birthing happens; the sacrifice comes with the pieces you give freely along the way.  I gave more than was asked, had even more taken and in the end I don’t know who was supposed to be benefiting.  So I crawl now on battered bones with heavy heart, knowing my sacrifice was unwanted.  My sacrifice was for naught and only brought terror and pain, ugliness and black.  It was my fault and I have to live with that, my family has to live with that because of me.  I am so guilty.  I am so guilty.

Returning to today…

In April of 2006 I was still deep in the caverns of guilt ridden, self-examination and sacrifice with the determination to find a resolution to my suffering.  My baby was 1 day shy of 4 months old.  I was 6 days past my 29th birthday.  Today my daughter is a mere 15 terrifying days away from turning 4.  I am 4 months and 8 days short of turning 33.

Too long a sacrifice

Can make a stone of the heart

Oh when way it suffice?

-William Butler Yeats 1865-1939

Has my heart turned to stone yet during these past years?  Have my sacrifices become more genuine or are they mostly imagined and martyr-ly?  I don’t know if there is a valid way for me to tell.  I think it is likely one of those things where 10 people in a room would all give you varying answers.  I  need to turn to my stony heart for answers and for that I need a sharpened pick ax and a strong swing.

I am finding myself.  I could easily end that sentence right there but I had intended to go on.  I am finding myself with so many questions these days.  I can answer some with a quick trip to Google or a phone call.  I can hide under the covers and cry until I determine the reply to another query.  And there are still millions that make my heart race or my eyes glaze over from either panic at maybe never knowing or trying so hard to find the answer that I get stuck deep in my cerrebellum.

Sacrifice?  Happiness?  A time to make new memories?  Write more or less?  Does cleaning under the bed really matter?  How do I love better and be loved better?  Can I be whole?  Is my racing heart just a glistening rock with channels worn through it for blood flow?  What is it that makes Trader Joe’s Peppermint Jo-Jo’s so hard to put down?

How will I ever make it through another one of my baby girl’s birthday’s when I am struggling so much with just talking to her about the act of being 4?  What cruel power planned December to go: Hannukah, Christmas Eve with the in-laws, Christmas, drive for 2 1/2 hours for 3 days of Christmas with separate parents out of state, week of mandatory furlough (yeah no pay!), New Year’s Eve/Wee Girl’s Birthday/Trauma Flashback Day?  For real?  This makes sense?  Was I really cruel to the serfs in my fiefdom?

As we approach the end of 2009 I hope it comes with an end to the types of sacrifice that turn beating hearts to solid stones.  Maybe we can all be lucky enough to be left with the sacrifices that warm you with a sense of completion and an eagerness for more.  Zora Neale Thurston writes in Their Eyes Were Watching God that there are years that ask questions and there are years that give answers.  I am hoping beyond hope that 2010 is a year that comes with some answers or at least more multiple choice questions.  When in doubt you can always pick “C.”

I work at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. As you may know, each year around Thanksgiving, a giant evergreen tree is trucked in and trussed up in time for the televised “Lighting of the Tree.” The tree is big. It’s so big that decorating it takes weeks. And scaffolding. Lots and lots of scaffolding.

Now, this is only my second Christmas in NYC, but I’ve already got my own ritual for this event. I, along with everyone who works in the building, evacuate at 3pm before the crowds gather to watch the tree get blown up and sung to by rock stars.

Occasionally, I get irritable in New York. Sometimes when I’m walking and people (confession, I call them tourons, but I don’t mean you) stop on the sidewalk and impede the flow of foot traffic, I clench my jaw and widen my eyes in exasperation as I pause and wait for a path through to make itself known. I walk quickly, but I don’t run over people—they more or less veer into my path, like cicadas bobbling into a windshield.

As I’ve said on Twitter, if you lack the spatial awareness to step aside when exiting a door, elevator, or escalator, you’re probably really bad in bed.

Occasionally, as I walk through the city, I’m glad for the jostling, because it makes me feel connected in a sea of well-dressed anonymity. At these times, I’m filled with the spirit of kum-ba-yah, and I’ll often find that I’m smiling to myself. It’s not forced, it just happens. Who knows what brings it on—maybe I had a really good doughnut that day—but I certainly prefer being at peace with humanity rather than being a steaming bowl of annoyed.

But I digress. This post is supposed to be about managing mental illness, right? And, as I type this, it’s 8 days late according to my self-imposed monthly deadline. I’ve known I wanted to write about the holidays for at least a month, so why have I stalled?

Because I kind of hate the holidays.

And believe me, there are reasons.

This is a whole book, this here topic of me and the holidays.

It’s genetic.

No, really.

It started with my grandmother.

Okay. [Deep breath.]

My grandmother was a Jehovah’s Witness. She wasn’t born that way. She chose it. And she was one of the 144,000 who are actually going to join God in Heaven. Well, she’s there already. She died six years ago this month.

I hardly knew my grandmother. My few memories of her center around rare visits during which I watched her shove vitamins down her Siamese cat’s throat and slather enormous quantities of hand lotion on herself and anyone within arm’s reach. Once I turned age 12, these visits stopped. With a complete lack of irony, my mother said she didn’t want my grandmother to hurt me the way she had hurt her. There were a few feeble attempts at communication over the years, but that ended when I got a note from my grandmother saying how worried she was because I was going to burn in hell for going to college.

You may know that Witnesses don’t celebrate holidays. My mother grew up never celebrating her birthday or Christmas. This of course meant that the holidays assumed an importance to her that was…spectacular.

I don’t remember a single holiday from my childhood (I’m talking even Independence Day) where my mother didn’t end up yelling. As I got older, and began to stick up for myself, her screams turned to sobs that I had caused by…well…by sticking up for myself. I was hollowed out after each encounter, and once I realized this pattern wasn’t going to end, I began methodically desensitizing myself by unplugging emotionally from the holidays as best as I could.

I evacuated.

One way I learned to manage the holidays was to encourage group gatherings. On those lucky holidays, we’d celebrate at a friend’s home, and keep the crying and humiliation confined to the car. (And here the memories are starting to come back. Ugh.) Another way I learned to manage the holidays was to stop going home. Of course there were repercussions to this decision, but it felt like survival more than a choice. For the most part, my mother has understood when I’ve chosen not to go  home. As much as she has lashed out, there’s always been a part of her that has known things were really messed up and simply not known how to fix it.

Now, my grandmother had been a traveling private nurse, and in her late 60s, she checked herself into a nursing home because she said she was ready to let people take care of her. It was her turn. She then went and lived for another 20-odd years. To me it just seemed like giving up. My mother said for years that she thought her mother might die soon, but this time, in 2003, I knew it was serious. I hadn’t planned on going home for Christmas that year, but my mother sounded destroyed by what was happening to her mother, so I was down in Florida at the nursing home the next day. All three of us were in the room when my grandmother left this world on December 18.

I’ve written elsewhere at length about what transpired in the days and weeks following. We had some wonderful talks as we parsed apart the legacy of choices that had led us to where we were. But then something snapped and there she was, glaring and furious because I had rolled her coins. (Funny because it’s true.) I remember saying, as things devolved, “I never understood why you kept me.” It wasn’t an accusation, it was a genuine question borne out of the confusion I’d always experienced at being told I was loved one moment and treated with contempt in the next. She quietly responded, “I don’t know why I did either. There were plenty of other people who would’ve taken you.” She later clarified that she meant that, for all she gave up in order to raise me, it seemed that it was all for naught because I didn’t know that she loved me.

I’ve only called a suicide hotline twice, and this was one of those times. It actually ended up being funny. The fact that I had counted out my sleeping pills wasn’t what scared me—it was that I was suddenly deeply altered, like I had checked out. I was calm, affectless, and almost in a trance as I counted. The very freaked-out part of me that wanted to live then promptly sat on the floor, sandwiched herself between the bed and the wall, and called a hotline. I was on hold for so long—what with it being the holidays and all—that by the time I finally reached someone, I basically said that I couldn’t take up his time when there were clearly so many people needing help right then. I didn’t know at that time that the name for one of the conditions I had was Passive Suicidal Ideation, but I knew enough to know that, even though I wanted to give up because I couldn’t seem to find a way out of my pain, I wouldn’t really *do* anything, as seductive as that thought was at the time. So I hung up once I felt connected again.

The next day, after my zombie self unlocked the bedroom door, my mother came in, sat down on the bed, and made a solemn promise to me that she would never let an event like that happen again. I snorted a little because I didn’t believe her—belief like that costs too much. I remember thinking that’s right, it wouldn’t happen again, because I’ll do my best not to be that vulnerable again. I told her, “You can’t promise that.”

I don’t think my mother has ever really had a full round of therapy. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to navigate her particular emotional minefield without professional support. I know I wouldn’t have made it had I not had the help of others far smarter than I. I remember thinking at the time that if it were that easy for her to stop ridiculing me, why had she tormented us both over the years. I didn’t believe she had that kind of control over herself. But, I guess I had scared not only myself, but her as well, so even though she lacked the understanding, she made a choice of will to never behave that way again. I had forgotten she’d even made the promise, until she reminded me recently. I have to say, I think she’s kept her promise.

And I think maybe that’s love.

In a few weeks, I’m visiting my mother for Christmas. She’s been so self-aware lately that I recently asked her, “Are you getting therapy and not telling me?” (Answer: No, but she’s had time to think things over.)  I’m not hoping for a wonderful time, but I’m not dreading it like I used to. I’m actually a little optimistic, because you have to be, right? But I’m also on guard just in case, because I know there’s a part of her that is so hurt that she might lash out. And there’s room for that now without it making me crumble. It’s my job to defend myself, though it’s still new and difficult—it feels like I’m not allowed, like it hurts her.

Whew. Okay. That wasn’t sooooo bad.

The holidays can be rough for some of us. There’s not enough time, not enough money, not enough warmth and ease. We each find our ways of coping with the strain—I know I deliberately let myself get a little numb. I evacuate. I have my rituals of checking out. Where I used to love singing carols and decorating my home, I just sort of don’t go there because it would make me sad. And I used to love giving gifts, until the lean years when I was embarrassed that I couldn’t afford to give them. So my protective choice to emotionally ignore the holidays means I don’t appreciate the outdoor festivities, but I do have friends who get excited, and that makes me happy, because even though I don’t look forward to the holidays, I understand that for some, it’s a time of renewal in the midst of the bitter cold. For others, it’s a time of grieving. For me, this year, it’s a time for both—I know the holidays will probably always be a trigger for me, just like they are for my mother, but I also can slowly begin to let my guard down and hope that it might be just a little different this year. Which is terrifying, by the way.

Many people are struggling with mental illness, and some also are fending off emotional violence in the home. I’ve never felt ashamed for having had depression and all those other things. In a way I sometimes think I’m lucky because the root cause of my depression wasn’t chemical, it was external, circumstantial, a problem to be solved. (Though I’m guessing the decades of depression had a chemical effect.) I’m still working on telling my story in a way that doesn’t hurt my family by revealing too much of their part in things, but I’ve always believed that sharing our stories can heal on both ends of the transaction.

And I believe that I am entitled to my story.

Sort of.

I’m working on it.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to bundle up and head home through the holiday crowds on Fifth Avenue. I have gifts to buy.

The countdown at casa de Miriam is on in full force.  We have the paper strips cut and ready for glitter glue, stamps and taping into chains to hang and confuse visitors.  There is the Hanukkah chain.  December 11.  The Christmas chain.  December 25.  Wee Girl’s 4th Birthday!!! December 31.  New Year’s Eve.  December 31.

There is no chain to count the heart wrenching marking of days that began sometime in the last few weeks and surprised me with its “still crazy after all these years” presence.  My daughter’s birthday is, oddly enough, also the anniversary  of her birth and thusly of what is one of the worst days of my life in spite of the amazing ten fingered, ten toed little beauty that came with it.  New Year’s Eve 2005 marked the beginning of years of a new sort of distress that my brain wasn’t used to regardless of the years of training in mental dysfunction I had.  Post-partum depression and a fresh batch of PTSD.   I hid it mostly, for the first year but by her first birthday I was shocked to wake up in a sweat.  Not long after that I was waking up very differently and without my little girl beside me.

I have worked so blessed hard to get better from this, let alone the mental and physical scars from days gone by.  But each year as December rolls in my chest tightens and breathing gets that much harder to manage.  The spirit of celebration is masked by fatigue, flashbacks and restlessness.  Fear and anticipation of The Day’s arrival choke me and leave me feeling split in two with a cleaver, as though anybody could see the wretched ache inside me.  Anybody could prey on it.

Yet this is my precious little one’s birthday and I should be struggling with pink streamers, glittery balloons and foolish party hats- not symptom control.  I know though that I need a second by second plan for that day from the moment I wake up to when I take an extra sleeping pill to fall asleep.  Without a round the clock plan there is too much room for emotional disaster.  4 years after my baby was taken from me so easily while I cried out until I was helped to calm down by a syringe and an anesthesiologist who turned blurry in seconds- and I am still stuck.  The distance is still there in little places throughout the year but on what should be her day and her day alone I am still having to distance myself from the moments, the day, from HER.

I would like to say that I will return this topic and release more.  Not just for myself but because somewhere inside me I know I must not be the only one.  And I DO believe that I am not the only with anniversaries of pain and mental paper chains to count down.  However, I am still not through the paper links.  There are still rings for children to argue over ripping before the arrival of that day of days.  The day when the whole world celebrates a fresh start, my daughter is showered with “my haven’t you growns” and I pray for a knock out pill that will keep me standing but get me through the day without feeling the sharp sting of tears or pulling of scars.  So I can’t really say that I’ll get back to this soon because I don’t want the pressure and I don’t want to rope myself into failure right now.  When the time is right I will share more and as always I welcome (very nearly plead with) you to share with me, on site or via email.

My daughter is nearly 4 years old.  Not a baby anymore and oh so bright and beautiful.  She is my love and my light and I hate and fear that one day she will read my words.  I never want her to blame herself for my swollen eyed, frantic Decembers and stumbling Happy Birthdays.  I never want her to feel the depth of my depths and feel like she dug the pits herself.

I hope that she will teach me to love December 31st for what it is- her birthday and New Year’s Eve.  I hope that one year I stop calling it the anniversary of her birth and my mental countdown will disappear.  I will only hope to be able to stay awake long enough to watch the ball drop with her and the rest of my family beside me.  She was born on a day of worldwide celebration.  There will always be a party on her birthday (god save me on her 21st!) even if I can’t throw it.  Her bounce, her giggle and her clarity of vision has fueled my breaths, my heartbeats and my kisses for 4 difficult years that I would never trade.

In junior high a cool kid appeared as a transfer.  She was amazing and had been living in Canada.  She was originally from New England like me but wow, Canada.  She played hockey on the boy’s team and she liked awesome stuff that I liked and awesome stuff that I wanted to like.  And she helped me figure out how to convince my mother to let me get a giant streak of magenta dyed into my hair by a very odd man in a very odd hair salon in “the city.”  I rocked.  Just like that I rocked and was awesome and felt it.  It was like the cool just came out with every breath but mostly with each toss of my ash blonde and MAGENTA hair.  That silly streak opened me up and helped the inside heal when all my secret ways of trying had failed.  I am forever grateful to my cool girl friend that showed me how easy it could be to just be.  And that you can play on the same side as the boys sometimes.

In the years between then and now I have had red, auburn, blonde-blonde, just highlighted, streaks, caramel, brown, cherry coke, bad decision black, natural and most recently- my happy fun hair.  I have mentioned my happy fun hair before which will only go to prove my long winded point.  Last spring I realized I was getting too old for my brain and maybe even for my body and went on a spree of random actions.  I got an iPod with bejillion accessories.  I got a ton of new clothes after losing 25 pounds.  And I got a great hair cut followed by 6 appointments to get the right hair color.  It was a deep, deep, rich red with undertones of cherry and mahogany.  At the crown I had medium sized chunky highlights in a golden blonde tone that I could make disappear with a trick of the brush.  It doesn’t sound right but it kicked ass.

This was before the economic dive of the country and the cutbacks at my husband’s non-profit job.  I spent a lot of money on vanity and fear of aging.

But when I walked around, when I picked my son up from pre-school- I stood so tall.  I was taking back my youth on the outside and it was jumpstarting the process on the inside.  I stood out and got to feel like the suburban subversive I believe myself to be.  My hair was a symbol of the old lady me being banished so that I could reconnect to the version of me that is, well, happy fun me.

I got the color redone once and then there was the 10% pay cut, the mandatory furloughs, the loss of retirement benefits etc.  So it faded.  I didn’t have a good enough reason to commit that much money to something as foolish as my hair.  How vain can a person be to spend several hundred dollars (I have a lot of very absorbent hair) on a dye job when their kids need sandals or later on- winter boots?  Then again I was feeling better so my symbol of happy fun me seemed less vital as long as I could sustain the pep on my own- which I could.  For a while.

So now it is much too long and I have mismatched colors throughout.  I have discovered that in my attempt to reconnect to my youth I hid the massive growth of grey hair around my temples and forehead.  The grey, along with the 3 inch roots contrasting against the faded red and blonde, make it look dirty or filled with dandruff of epidemic proportion much of the time.  This is clearly not the look I am searching for.

My foolish hair has become a symbol of enormous proportions again now that I am facing a depression.  Happy fun me (maybe that deserves proper noun status by now?) needs a boost to come out and I think a shock of red hair catching the sun will do it.  I am fixating.  I am embarrassed and feel older and like everyone assumes I am 10 years beyond my calendar years.  That isn’t the compliment it used to be.  It is common in my town to be 42 and have a 5 and almost 4 year-old but I am 32.

When I got my hair done last Spring I took a step away from the boring person who was walking around in a psychiatric contemplative state.  I connected to a new, more vibrant, more vital and present me.  Now that I know I can get to that person and that I have become distant from her, I am desperate to get back there.  The last thing I need in my world right now is distance- let alone from myself.

There is no way to make this happen.  I don’t have a ball to go to where I can hope to have a fairy godmother appear.  From what little I know of guardian angels, they don’t drop cash or Aveda gift cards from on high.  I probably shouldn’t skip eating or medication and even if I did… it would be a while and it might make me nutso beyond the fix of a good colorist.  But you know what- to spill some openness- I have lost 47 pounds in the last year and I am very grateful for that.  I have been better but am now worse.  Right now is hard and me with my happy fun hair and 50 pounds lighter might make the next few months less scary and more bearable.  I might enjoy them.  I would feel pretty and 32 and like I could play hockey on the boy’s team even though I don’t really skate.

Yet again- I want, I want, I want.  It feels so petty and selfish but it is consuming at times.  How did I become the woman who spends this much time concentrating on her hair?  I didn’t even own a blow dryer until I was married.  This happened because I am like so many struggling people, trying really hard to find quick fixes for my problems, my life, my anything.   Kicker is this one, this silly color combination from fancy-schmancy-here-is-your-tea-Aveda, really does bring me up from my down.  And… it works a lot faster than any antidepressant I know.

What color hair do you have?  Do you like it?  Would you change it?  What color or cut or pattern of stripes and dots do you think could make you feel the whiz, pow, pop of life in a new way?

The past few months have been difficult for me: Mike’s stroke, financial problems, DJ’s death, sickness (Hello SWINE FLU). My anxiety, always a problem, became crippling. I couldn’t face social situations. The smallest tasks became overwhelming and I withdrew from Mike and the kids. More than anything, I wanted to crawl into myself and hide. It was physical too. I started eating more and moving less. Always tired, my entire body ached. My arthritis was also hurting more and I finally broke down and went to the doctor at the beginning of November. While I was there, he suggested I change the meds I take for depression. For the past few years I’ve been doing fairly well taking Zoloft. I still struggle with my emotions from time to time, but it helps. He told me that Cymbalta would do the same thing but that it would also help with my pain and fatigue. I hate taking pills, so it sounded good. At the same time, he gave me two prescriptions for pain relievers/muscle relaxers.

Sure enough, after a week of Cymbalta I felt a lot better physically but mentally I was much worse. I wasn’t sad or even ‘depressed’. It is hard to explain, but something was very wrong. Have you ever gotten a song stuck in your head? You try and try not to think about it but every time you turn around you’re humming the tune or singing the words. The next few weeks went something like that, but instead of songs I would think about hurting myself. They weren’t suicidal thoughts; I didn’t want to kill myself. Washing dishes, I would imagine breaking a glass and cutting myself. Every time I shut the van door I would have to force myself to move my hand out of the way so that I wouldn’t accidently smash it on purpose. If I walked under a tree I would think about a branch breaking and falling on me. It was terrifying. For the most part, I was able to ignore the urges, but not always. Once I was cutting my toenails and kept feeling compelled to take off more and more of the nail until I had torn my entire nail off. I was looking at my bloody toe and I knew that it should hurt but I didn’t feel anything but relief.

I should have asked for help, but I didn’t want to seem crazy. Normal people don’t do things like that. I did talk to a couple of people about the drug but they didn’t mention any side effects like I was experiencing so I thought that it must be in my head.

Last Friday, Mike and I got in a huge fight. We have our little disagreements, but we very rarely argue. Something inside of me broke and I started crying hysterically. I insisted that Mike leave the house because I couldn’t even look at him. I knew I was in trouble. My first reaction was to take one of the other pills the doctor had prescribed. I’d had trouble with it before because it put me to sleep right away. I figured that it would calm me down and I could take a nap before the kids came home. Mike was supposed to be back soon and he could take care of things until I was back to myself.

The bottle said to take one pill three times a day. My brain was running around in circles. I should just take three pills once, right? The worst that could happen was that I would sleep all day and wake up feeling groggy. I took three and waited and cried and waited and cried. Nothing happened. My brain was still racing. What if I took three more? I’d get sick probably, but at least I would go to sleep. I took three more and waited and cried and waited and cried. Nothing happened. I took a shower, with my clothes on, and fell asleep. The water in my face woke me up and I remember thinking that the water had washed away the medicine. I should take some more…

I don’t remember anything after that, but my sister said that the bottle was empty. I woke up in the ICU and stayed there for two days. After that I spent four days in a locked psych ward at the hospital. No tv. No radio. No clock. Just lots and lots of time. They changed my meds and listened to me cry. Then they listened to me cry some more. Then they listened to me talk. And then they let me go home. I feel a million times better now, but ???? Now I feel like I am officially branded: MENTALLY ILL. It seems worse somehow than just getting some meds from the family doctor. Now it’s Major Depression with a side of Invasive Thoughts.

By KristyK

I am plodding my way through the muck these days, trying to get to the other side- the side I left just a few weeks ago.  Or has it been long enough to measure in months?  When did it turn so that I can’t even remember when it began?  At least I am trying to make some changes though.  There are big changes that I loathe, small ones that sting but should be easy, ones that pass by in a flash but make a big impact.  If only they would come together better and more quickly.

I know last week I promised to smile this week.  Whatever image you have of me in your head- take it and make it smile… now.  Okay I am currently smiling. 1… 2… 3… and done.  That is about as much I can muster for now but know that I have smiled and laughed and plan to keep trying.  I just can’t seem to translate it into my writing.  Sorry folks, I did try.

One of the harder parts of life now may be remembering how little control I have over the rest of the world.  Man, isn’t that awful.  Why am I not in charge of things?   I could totally handle the rotation of the planets around the sun or the shift changes at the drugstore.  So there is no doubt that I am perfectly able to be the boss of everyone around me.  If I could just make them dance when the music plays and tell them who is out when the music stops my life would be so much better.  Or is that a silly game people play when things don’t go right and they feel helpless?

I am getting tired of the flip of the coin feeling that is becoming my life.  Heads- you win.  Tails- you lose.  Call it in the air but call it right and think hard about what you are playing for because you may or may not want to win.

Currently I am sitting on a four-poster, Ethan Allen canopy bed that I got slightly used but free from an online moms group and that is awesome.  I also found a bug crawling up the sheet trying to get to my pillow and scheming to then eat me.  Not awesome.

A lovely woman from my son’s school who I thought was sort of my friend begrudgingly has been inviting me places and took a moment out of a conversation to tell me she considers me a close friend.  Yeah me!  Another friend who I adore is consumed by a very demanding job and other responsibilities so despite the fact that I feel like we have buckets in common and could talk endlessly, I must be content with a few hours on a Sunday afternoon every three or four weeks.  Boo.

I have found that I newly enjoy the jewelry making that I left behind several years ago when my second child was big enough to think the beads would make good teethers.  However that craft was one I learned as part of the beginning of a near-clinical breakdown.  I spent $1000.00 on beads.  If you didn’t know- that is a boat load of beads.  But I went on to become pretty good at it and incorporated it into my business years later, making back a chunk of the money.  I love, love, love the new-kid-fun of the jewelry- even in the middle of a depression.  Hazzah to me and my craftiness!  But I am also tempted by the glitter of the sun in the bead store window and have to re-learn to pass it by and also try not to think of the beading as the prelude to intensive therapy.  Not so much with the hearty hazzah.

50% of the time (situations) it seems like all is well and I should kick back and try to let my shoulders drop.  The other 50% I am flailing, getting the raw end of the stick or losing out on something.  So how the hell am I to know if I should be depressed or thrilled?  Maybe I should be constantly riding along the median strip, never crossing into one lane or the other?  Isn’t that the opposite of living?  But depression as it gets deeper is no way to live either so I have to physically and mentally force myself to TRY to get better even when complacency is so much easier.

What matters is not the easy or the hard but the right.  Today I hate the right but I need it and want it in spite if that and so I am doing what I need to do as best as I know how.  I will hydrate, I will try to sleep just enough, I will eat appropriately, take the right medicines.  I will try not to seclude myself from the world even when it is not fun.  I will do all those things people tell you to do.

Here is the secret though: I know that some of you understand what I mean by saying that deep down- 50% of the time I want to be the boss and 50% of the time I am pleading for someone else to be the one to call it in the air.  It always comes down to heads or tail and I am just hoping that I’m not dealing with a trick coin.