We moved. I bought a house. What an adult thing to do! I must be adulting very well.
The truth is that after months of stress and deadlines I am completely adrift and out of motivation. For anything. I’ve been coasting for weeks. The only thing I really want to do it sit in my back porch with a cocktail, my phone, and as many cigarettes as I can fit into a four hour stretch before I stumble to bed at a reasonable time in order to get up for work. I may or may not get stoned before work. I am not proud of this at all, but my ability to focus is completely gone and being spaced out at least allows me to perform without jumping out of my skin.
It’s the middle of winter. The Middle Of Winter. In the Midwest this means that most people are either: bundled up in sweaters and celebrating survival and camaraderie around a cozy fire OR gazing out a frosty window over a bleak empty freezing landscape, unable to feel anything at all and trying to remember the last time they’ve seen the sun. The earth is the same color as the sky. You drape yourself over one of those sun lamps in the hopes that it will make you feel human again. You shuffle through everything that helps you feel anything. The booze has somehow managed to shrink your pants, paint bruises all over your body, and scoop out your heart. There are still three months of winter to go and even though this happens every fucking year and every fall you tell yourself that THIS year will be different. You’ll exercise, you’ll cut out the booze, you’ll take your vitamin D and try not to get sucked into the abyss but by February 1st you are looking around wondering who you are, how you got here, and why there is not a shred of anything positive left inside you. The only thing that makes sense is to kill hours hunched over a glass. If you actually leave your house, you will probably hunch over a glass somewhere else which you tell yourself is being social. You are acting like you’re alone, but it happens around other people. It counts!
Depression is a winter tradition, not a personal flaw. I just have to hold on for a few more months, try to fit more sober days into a week, and if I need to spend the day in bed god dammit I’ll do it. I realize that the cream in my coffee has turned but I don’t want to get up and anyway it was only a little bit of cream and shouldn’t make me sick or anything, I can only taste the bitterness if I hold it in my mouth. Wouldn’t it be funny if I actually got sick on Sunday even though I called in sick on Friday? So funny!
Okay, I guess I do have enough pride not to lay in my bed and drink sour milk. This is the line I am unwilling to cross? Good to know, I’ve really been wondering where it is.
Unpacking These Boxes 