Long Week

It's been a frickin' long week here and last weekend's events have been weighing on me heavily for most of it. I apologized, and that's good, but it doesn't make it okay and I've been struggling most of this past week because I've been dwelling on it almost every idle moment. I don't want to ignore it, because something is clearly wrong or out of whack for me to behave like that, but I also don't want to dwell on it because dwelling just isn't productive. So for the past few days I've been really focusing on not being idle whether that means exercising more, reading, cooking, or whatever.

A big part of not being idle has meant not staying up so late at night after Scoob and the kitties have drifted off to sleep and the more exercise bit has been helping me want to actually get in bed at a decent hour. That doesn't necessarily mean I get to sleep at a decent hour (see more reading above) but being in bed is halfway there.

A month or so ago I had this vision of what was happening inside me, I felt like something black, sticky, and suffocating was bubbling up inside me and was the lens through which I looked at the world. Last weekend it was no longer bubbling up—it had spilled over, coating me from head to toe and there was no escaping it and no hiding it.

Sexy.

The last couple of days I feel like I've been able to claw my way back from the edge of that blackness. It's still there, not as big and insurmountable as it was before, but it's still there. And I know it can still suck me under if I'm not careful; if I don't do something about it. So I've been kicking around the idea of getting some help, therapy, whatever. Of course kicking around the idea involves thinking about the blackness and that's what I've been trying to avoid this past week. I'm not ready to confront this thing head-on. I mean crickies, if you saw that thing, you'd run the other way too, right? Or at the very least prepare yourself to deal with it before you take it on, right?

So I've been focused on keeping my thoughts in check. I can't even believe how black and viscous some of my thoughts have become, usually toward myself, but also toward others. I can't ever remember having thoughts like these on such a regular basis. The fact that I've become aware of it is huge. I mean now that I recognize these thoughts I can now objectively take a look back at how long I've been having them. And while I can't pinpoint a moment or event when I began having them on a regular basis, I can recognize that this has been going on for some time.

Now when I have one of these thoughts I can pick it up, take a look at it, and set it aside and think about something else. I can do this with one or two black thoughts. But when they come in rapid fire, I'm still struggling. I've been trying to think about things to be thankful for or happy about. Right now, the biggest one is that I'm alive and living a life, such as it is. It may not be the life I pictured for myself, or the life that I think I want, but it is a life nonetheless.

I started thinking about all the innumerable people over the course of history who did not live to be almost-39 and how grateful I should be that I have. (A little dark, I know, but it's what I've been thinking about.) I have a few close friends and people I love that love me back, so I'm really not as completely alone and disconnected as I feel sometimes.

Eventually I'll get back to where I can feel that life doesn't have to be combative, where I don't feel like I have to wear a mask and steel myself every time I step outside the house. I can't really remember a time when I haven't felt the need to mask myself to the world, maybe in childhood, but I'd dearly like for that mask not to be so different from what's inside. I'd really like to be able to sit on the patio with the sun on my face, listening to the wind in the trees and the hawks flying overhead and be content again. Those are the goals I'm thinking of and I know I'm not going to get there overnight, but I'll get there—if I'm anything, I'm persistent. :)