jack-o-lantern smile

perhaps it's fitting that this week is halloween because i feel like a jack-o-lantern: hollow on the inside, missing most of my (metaphorical) teeth and waiting to either be forgotten and rot away or be smashed to bits by someone who either thinks its fun to destroy things or doesn't even really put any thought into what they're doing.

it's been a helluva few months.

this year started off with so much promise- writing, publishing, goals, THINGS. but life is what it is, time flies past before you even notice, and in the blink of an eye the universe has dumped you in a back alley at midnight, battered and bruised just waiting for the dawn of another year to start again fresh.

"if i can just make it through a few more months..."

then what? the mark of a new year doesn't signal a magic want to hit the refresh button. another few months are simply another few months leading to another few months.

i don't mean this to sound like a depressing spiral of time into nothingness. it's actually, twistedly, my attempt to remind myself that there is no magical restart button and i need to get my shit together NOW and quit waiting for...whatever. there is no sparkle glitter rainbow day on the calendar that makes adulting suddenly easy and manageable. there is no jackpot day that you land on that suddenly makes all your bills go away and your bank account never empty.

i'm not sure what adulting looks like right now besides barely managing to keep food in the house (really, grocery shopping is such a pain in the ass ordeal) and binge watching horrible shows on netflix (how the fuck did bones make it past the first season??)

i have a very limited social circle. i have a hard time spending money in bars to drink with strangers i have zero desire to interact with. i'm tired of going to events alone as talking to or mingling with strangers is just awkward at best, traumatizing (for them) at worst. i've survived several sports seasons now interacting with other parents only as necessary/required.

i'm heading into winter, aka depression season, felling the most damaged and alone as i have in a LONG time.

oddly though, i also feel fine. i've been (mostly) remembering to take my vitamins including a TON of vitamin D, i've been doing things for myself, allowing impulse buys as the budget allows, i'm doing ok. i'm just doing it alone.

a few months back i had someone ask if he could move in for a bit while he sorted things out after a break up. we were (i thought) good friends, knew each other well enough, and i had extra space, so why not? it quickly went downhill VERY fast for several reasons. i'm not used to living with anyone besides my kids. i've never had to have a roommate. for the very short time i was married he worked nights and i worked days and we barely saw each other. i knew it would be an adjustment, but i didn't know it would be so destructive and toxic. end of the day it turns out that i am...how did it go...uncommunicative, unwelcoming, and my house is unlivable/disgustingly dirty all the time. the overall experience ended up being costly- lost one of the very few people i counted as a friend and damaged a friendship with another who got caught in the crossfire of being my sounding board/his employee.

around the same time, the magazine i had been working for back at the beginning of the year contacted me again and asked me to write a few more pieces for them (apparently writers who work for free aren't as abundant as they thought). they wanted a few album/EP reviews. second verse, same as the first. last time they stopped asking me to contribute after i pushed back on a band they wanted to run as a cover story that i felt gave a horrible interview and took the whole process a bit too flippantly (including a separate on-air interview). this time around i apparently didn't make it known well enough that the reviews were my opinion, and came across as too harsh and negative in the reviews. my final assignment was for an artist interview that i was not comfortable doing as i knew it would end up almost exactly like the last interview. instead of wasting my time and the artists time and continue fighting a losing battle over my pieces, i instead tendered my resignation at the magazine. it was the only writing i had done in a while and the loss was not insignificant.

finally, the last few weeks have been a mess of doctors appointments and tests and major levels of panic. know how doctors warn women about breast cancer ALL THE TIME? and don't forget breast cancers ugly cousin, inflammatory breast cancer! so when i noticed itching, lactating, overnight increase in cup size, and general overall pain...cue panic. and doctors tests. and sleepless nights wondering who was going to take care of my kid if i had to be down any time at all. and stress about how i would afford medical bills when i can barely afford medical co-pays. and even a particularly depressing call to my mother to ask for family history since no one talks about ANYTHING. after blood work, a mammogram, and an ultrasound i was sent home with a resounding YOU'RE FINE but no actual answers aside from that. so yay, no cancer, but what the fuck?

none of these events are particularly traumatic. they're concerning. they're disheartening. they're panic inducing. they're hard. they messed with my self esteem, self image, sense of security and talent/ability. made me question myself at core levels. they've kicked me in the teeth and tipped my maslow's scale in all different directions and caused a general upheaval, but not a destructive hurricane.

but when you add them together they get bigger. and when they're in this giant lump and i'm staring at it, alone, with no one to talk to or help me pick it apart...it becomes hurricane potential.

my brain is this great and powerful beast. i'm smart. i can carry on intelligent conversations. i can remember details and facts with high accuracy. i can figure out problems and come up with solutions.

but: this beast never sleeps. it never turns off. it runs the same problems through over, and over and over again like a one of those fucking asshole DVD's that plays the start menu and the same crappy song on a continuous loop without ever shutting off but unlike the DVD there's not even a power button or an eject button to make all the noise go away (or even change to a different DVD). i think and rethink and dissect and analyze and review and consider and play out a million different options and endings. i retrace my steps and my processes looking for errors and way to improve or not fuck up again.

and when you're in that loop without a sounding board. when you're stuck with no one to talk to. when you just have your own never ending thoughts running full speed, all the time...it's lonely. and exhausting. it's destructive if you let it be, which, when you're exhausted happens all too easily. it's a bone weary exhaustion. there's no amount of sleep that can fix it because this stupid brain remembers exactly where it left off. you recharge or feel good for a few minutes but then it just all slips away and you don't even know what happened. i can leave work in a great mood, plenty of energy, but in my 15 minute drive home i think about grocery shopping, football practice, scraping together dinner after football practice without causing bed time to be too late, a call from the school, the chore chart that the kid has been ignoring, oh shit, school pictures are this week, i shouldn't have splurged on the manicure when school pictures are happening, oh fuck, did we remember to take the redbox movies back? oh wait, we didn't get red box movies, that was a few weeks ago. OH FUCK- did we take the ones back from a few weeks ago? i shouldn't be watching movies anyway. i should be reading books or writing. but my writing is shit anyway, so why bother writing at all? damn it, it's monday, i have a therapy appointment this afternoon and just missed the exit. why the fuck can i never remember where i'm going or when i have to be there? what am i even going to talk about at therapy this week? why am i even going to therapy if i don't know what i'm going to talk about? i'm probably just going to end up crying again over nothing and go home with a headache. i mean YEAH, it helps. and she helps me figure out what i need to talk about, but it's really just wasting her time. i'm sure there's people that need the appointment more than me. but, it's not like i would be doing anything at home anyway. might as well go. the next episode of greys anatomy can wait. i've already seen them all anyway. since i don't have a life. not like i have any pressing social engagements on my calendar...EVER. how lame are you that you NEVER have anything on your calendar besides kids doctors appointments and sports events? maybe if you weren't such a socially maladjusted freak you'd be able to make and keep a friend and then you would have somewhere to go and your therapist wouldn't be the one stuck listening to you all the time. that's right. the only person that listens to you is one you have to PAY to do it. maybe i should talk about that this week...

and so by the time i pull into my garage, in just 15 minutes, my energy is gone, my mood is crap, i just want to go to bed and stay there forever and ignore everyone and everything, but there's really nothing and no one to ignore which is even MORE depressing.

and so i'm just here. in this limbo of i feel fine but i know things aren't exactly fine. and i just feel hollow and empty and alone. and some days it's overwhelming and profound. and other days i don't even notice it and i'm glad to be able to read for hours on end without a single interruption. and at some point it would be nice to try to make friends again. and at some point it would be nice to write without feeling wrong. and at some point it would be nice to have something to look forward to.

but i'll keep smiling. i'll keep going to work. i'll keep making polite talk at football practice. i'll keep grocery shopping and i'll keep making dinner. i'll keep going on. and maybe, eventually, it won't seem so empty any more. maybe, eventually it will be fun again and there will be things to do and people to do them with. but, for now, this is the way it is. it's not optimal, but it's ok. and that's ok.