Out of the mouths of babes

This is a difficult story to tell, but I want to remember it.

On Christmas Eve morning, after making breakfast and opening gifts, I went into my room, got into bed, and cried. I cried and cried and felt as though I'd never stop.

Over the next week I spent a lot of time being sad crying, and close quarters with my youngest meant he saw me cry a couple of times.

New Year's Eve my car door latch had frozen and when I discovered that I couldn't close my door, I lost it. Everything felt so hopeless and I just couldn't stand it. My boyfriend fixed my door, I dried my tears and went on with my day, but before that happened my son said to me, "maybe you need to go back to the hospital...they took good care of you there, and you felt better." I had been thinking about going back to the hospital the day before. Eerie.

New Year's night the boy had a hard time going to sleep, and he finally burst into tears, loudly, an hour after he was supposed to be asleep. He told me he was worried that I would die of depression. "And if you died of depression, I would die of depression."

That boy can break my heart with just a few words. He's very in touch with his feelings.

I feel badly for him, because he feels a responsibility towards me that no child should feel toward their parent. I feel badly for him because my disease makes his life harder.

I don't know how to end this story, but I wanted to tell it, as much as I could.

New Low

With moodswings like mine it's inevitable that I'll experience a different mood from one day to the next. Unfortunately during the Christmas holiday my mood took a turn for the worse and I'm feeling really poorly.

I really wish I had something else to report, or a movie review (I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and have some things to say about it), but for now all I can say is that I'm teary and unmotivated and wish I could just sleep and sleep and sleep until... well, forever.

Sigh.

The idea is to hold on during bleak times like these to be surprised one day that I feel a little better, but all I can see are more and more days like this one. So I will apply more coffee and Stephen Fry reading the Harry Potter books to my beleaguered brain and hope something changes for the better.

The one-day-at-a-time plan

There are times when thinking a week out is just too hard for me. It feels like the world is caving in on me and I can't stand it. That's when I go to my one-day-at-a-time plan, and try to stop myself from worrying about tomorrow. It is what lays right in front of me that I will deal with. Today.

This is WAY WAY harder than it looks, because nothing is one day at a time. It's all about the future, and planning, and getting things done so other things can happen.

Today. Now. This is my list of one day things:

Take shower.
Brush Teeth.
Dress.
Return movie to video store.
Buy a few gallons of gas (literally, 3 or so).
Make lunch for my son and his playdate.
"watch" them while they play videogames and such.
Finish watching my current disc of "The Wire".

Things I might do, but don't have to:

Take a nap.
Put away clean clothes.
Organize dirty stuff.
Go to laundromat.
Wash dishes.
Clean dining room.

Once The Man comes home from work, I expect I'll interact with him. He's cooking dinner tonight (yay!), so I'm off the hook there. Good for us all, I say.

love is all around, no need to waste it

So I have been reading all of these things by people who call valentine's day a sham, and I'm sick of it. Yes, it's a sham, but it's a sham where you get to make people cupcakes or a card out of construction paper (or if you are sick as a dog like I am this week, buy them cards).

And it's a sham where I get to buy my kid and I some lovely pink tiger lillies and pale sherbert orange roses at the grocery store, and the whole shopping trip turns into foods which match in colour (except the black beans and the milk, those were the odd ones out).

And it's a sham where I get to feel silly and happy and remember how much I enjoyed it as a kid. Yes, it's overhyped. Hell, nothing isn't lately. I remember walking down the aisles at Shopko a few days before Christmas and they were putting out the VALENTINE'S candy. And today, as I walked to the checkout line at-packed-to-the-gills Walgreens, I saw the Easter candy. So, yes, all the ads, and the "YOU MUST CELEBRATE THIS" are annoying, but it's a far simpler day to ignore than the three months of Christmas, and it's simply a better day.

I'm tired of cynicism. I'm feeling very vulnerable and being sick on top of being snowbound for a week or so... I'm just spent. All I want to do is sleep all day (and since I've been up nearly all night, that is likely a good idea).

As far as Valentine's Day goes with me and my man, I told him I don't care about a present, but I want to be with him and have us both say "happy valentine's day", celebrate it by just being together. It's not a big deal, but it's a *deal*.

Happy Valentine's Day. Would you be mine?

Ups and Downs

So I'm down.

D
O
W
N

Down.

And it's not romantic or interesting. It makes everyone run away from me.
It makes me run away from everyone. I eat too much and sleep too much and think about hurting myself to make the incessant meaningless rhythm less drumbeat of pain go away.

And I can't parent properly, or student properly, and how the hell can I look for a job when getting out of bed is a chore?

I'm down.

Blah.

What the neck?

Oh, ouch. My neck hurts! My glands are swollen and my neck is super sore!
Time to call the doctor, I think. He said if I was still feeling ill in two weeks to come back in and see him (for another mono test among other things).

I'm so very tired.