Feeling All the Feelings

I haven't posted a blog since February 18. I'd like to say that it's because my sister is kicking so much ass with hers that I don't see the point in trying to compete in any way.

Actually, my sister IS doing a bang-up job on her blog. (http://hostilityandkindness.wordpress.com) She posts regularly, AND the posts are really informative and well-written, so you should probably check that out if you want to read about somebody who is getting better all the time.

I'm going the opposite way. And I'm posting this because maybe somebody else is struggling, and just know that you're not alone. Even if you want to be alone, and let's face it, you probably do, you can at least peek at your computer screen from the makeshift blanket fort you're curled under and see that, hey, somebody else is cracking too.

It's me. I'm cracking. I'm losing it in one of those major ways in which I feel like I'm never going to claw back to the surface. I'm losing it in one of those ways that makes it hard to say, "In five years I hope to achieve this goal," and then listing something fabulous.

The last goal I achieved was completing my thesis. It was kind of a miracle that I was able to finish it, because my personal life was falling down around me. A lot of things were going wrong all at once. I took a lot on in my work life, and it took its toll on my personal life, as these things so often do. Now I'm paying the price. It's awful and it's black and it's bleak and it's depressing, and I'm trapped. I can't stop working and I can't save the people I want to save, and, in short, absolutely nothing is going the way I thought it would when getting my master's degree was the thing I thought I needed to do in order to feel fulfilled. It was the promise I made to myself when I was going through those awful chemo treatments, because, let's face it, there's a lot of time to think when you're tethered to all of those bags of poison.

There's music and there's friends and family and working out, and thank GOD for all that, because I can't imagine how much things would tank without those positives. On the other hand, I've had to say goodbye a lot this year, and I'm TIRED of saying goodbye. I don't want to do it anymore. I want to hold on to those that I've lost. I want to grip them and never let go.

I can't do that. They need to move on, and I need to let them. But it's too much. It's too much and I can't do it anymore.

I wish I had some answer for the people who suffer from depression, but I don't. What I do have instead are some "comics" that accurately depict it.

From the incredible Hyperbole and a Half:


And from the fabulous coffee mug I've had since 1993:


This is temporary and I'm objective enough to know that, but that doesn't make the black hole any easier to climb out of or the fog easier to see through and step from with ease born of confidence, particularly when confidence itself is missing, too.

It's probably best described in Coldplay's "Fix You" in these lyrics:

When you try your best, but you don't succeed
When you get what you want, but not what you need
When you feel so tired, but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse

And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone, but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?

And it's even more ridiculous to consider previous obstacles I've overcome and realize how minor this is in comparison, but THIS is what's going to take me down? This is it?
Yep.

If anyone else is struggling, you're not alone. I don't want to hang out and talk about it or anything, but you're not alone. If nothing else, there is that.

And anything that makes me not want to even eat really sucks. Because food is the best.