mystic_savage

I'm going to Solstice Cafe in the U district after work for an hour or two tonight. I'll sit and do some freewriting with one of my bus friends, Mara, and then we'll take the bus downtown and part ways.

I might get up tomorrow morning and get coffee before the kids come over. Or I might not. We're going to a birthday party at Duwamish in the afternoon -- bouncy castle, cake. And after that?

Long hours with each other. We'll come up with something. Computer games will be involved, or movies. I have to clean my room -- it's a mess. There is always laundry.

And then Sunday. Long long too-busy Sunday shackled to the kids. Kevin picks them up at 5:30, and then Sunday evening. Nothing.

I haven't done a gratitude list in awhile, and I'm not going to do a long one now, but I'd like to note that every time I start thinking about dying, another reason to live asserts itself into my consciousness. Yesterday, it was Harbor Island. How can someone properly think of death while passing a thriving port -- freight cars, ships, trains, trucks -- all moving around, busy in the sunshine, surrounded by sparkling water. And today, Penny needed me to stay home with her. She has an ear infection and Karen couldn't stay home with her and we took her to the doctor and got antibiotics. And this evening Kevin invited me over to have dinner with him & the kids -- copper river salmon, and nobody cooks copper river salmon like Kevin does. He always manages to turn it out perfectly. I am more grateful for being able to continue a relationship with Kevin than I am for anything else. I thought the divorce would pretty much put an end to any friendship we had outside of co-parenting the kids, but instead it has highlighted the best parts of our friendship, which continues to grow, while allowing all the annoyances involved in being married to dissipate. So yes, I'm glad. And no, I can't properly concentrate on gloom & doom today. Will have to save that for October when things turn romantically rainy and everyone dons black again.

(sigh)

A three-day weekend. Did I write? Barely. Did I go out? Once. For coffee. And a walk. Did I read any good books? No. See any good movies? One. So what *did* I do? Other than lay around and cough up phlegm and moan a lot?

Computer games, people. Lots and lots and lots of computer games. Dumb, repetitive ones. I wasn't even having fun, but at the end of the game it says "Play Again" and you click. Must have popped a zillion bubbles. Again: loser.

(sigh)

Today I:
woke up with a headache, overslept, missed a bus by half a block, made a dumb pedestrian mistake and was almost hit by a car, was late to work anyway, discovered that i'd left the door open all weekend, screwed up a dictation, lost emotional control in front of my supervisor and another co-worker and told him to just fire me already, and now am sitting back at my computer and can't seem to stop crying. Utterly humiliated. One inch, people. I'm one fucking inch away from completely letting go of reality. Stupid reality. Who needs it? You know what I need? A fucking drink.

2:20 -- edit: While not completely better, I am now calmer. Had another short temper tantrum around noon, but I've dosed myself with melatonin & can make it until 5. Plus--you know, all that virtual support. Thanks all.

(a work in progress)

It's been almost three months since I took myself off of meds, and things are radically worse internally.  If I want to do this med-free mastering of depression thing, I have to do a lot more than I've been doing.  Basic things, like exercise.  Drink water.  Get out of the house.  Or clean it. Get my sleep schedule normal again.  Meditate.  Write.  And I've done almost nothing intentional to master depression or take care of things emotionally, other than the one thing I always do:  seek comfort.  Which works fine in the short term but seems to work against me in the long term.

Today I'm struggling with the question of:  do I really want to commit to doing some, all or most of things. Or do I really not want to commit to doing some of those things and do I instead want to commit to taking the medication consistently.

What I am committed to is making a change.  Because frankly, I can't live like this for very long. 

And I'm grateful to Chuck and Laurie and Celia for helping me crystallize those thoughts today.

I talk to my Dad on the phone and I say, "happiness is an illusion."  He says that depression is an illusion too.
"Choose your illusion," he says.  I tell him it should be the title of his next book.

Andrew visited this weekend.  He watches me roll up all the windows and turn on the air conditioner.  "Why don't you just send half of your money straight to Iraq?" he says.  I tell him I'm hypersensitive to noise.  That I need the windows rolled up because I can't concentrate on driving when I'm distracted by the outside.

He says I should practice zen.  I try to tell him I'm post-buddhist, but there is no "been there, done that" in zen.

I'm fighting with myself again, erupting all the time, yelling at my kids, baring my teeth.  Everything irritates me. 

I've gotten in touch with an old high school friend through Facebook.  She's in recovery for cocaine addiction and alcoholism. She's been through treatment for schizophrenia. Now, she works as a trainer for the Red Cross.  She volunteers on burn victim units. She's Christian--has been saved by God.

Sometimes your illusions choose you.

1. I read a whole chapter of a book last night and at the end of the chapter I knew what I'd read.
   
2. I enforced boundaries with the kids last night and didn't take it personally when they threw fits.
3. I listened to SJ Tucker and Gaia Consort on the bus this morning instead of Evanescence and Garbage.
4. I'm cautious about this, but I'm actually starting to feel some of that...whaddaya call it?...hope.

This is a perfect poem for this time of year, as the sun ages a little more each day and dear friends fall to old depressions.  My weariest time of year is usually October-November, but I can already feel it creeping up on me, bit by bit.  So here:  a reminder for me, and hope.