Humanity

Sweeps

I’m at a baseball game in the middle of the day. I mean, I guess they are all in the middle of the day. Fair enough.

I spent the morning trying to arrange rides for all the kids. It was successful and everyone is going to have a good time and that makes me feel all glowy, while i feel like shit at the very same minute because I am absent. this is not good. (goddamned school vacation, and all) and then i drove to my mom’s so that she could drive me to work.

Then, at work, I spent the morning walking my boss’s dogs because one of them was having surgery and my boss was feeling crazy stress and worry and so I went with her to the vet.

And now I am here, having gotten my car out of the shop for an insanely large amount of credit card usage. Its another one of those splits. 1.I am thrilled to have my car back and I would throw any amount of debt-incurring at it to have it back. who cares? and 2. I am feeling nauseous about finances.

But i have my car, and i made it to the game to see him play. I’m good. Its all good.

And I’m sitting in my car, looking at the greens and the golds, and the faintest blue of the sky, and being swept with meloncholy. I feel watery.

I don’t see a way out of some of where I find myself, well, not a way that I like.

Sigh. You know what new phrasing has arrived in our american language that I really like?

I am feeling some type of way.

I am.

I am feeling some type of way.

But I have my car, and I made it to the game, and I am sitting in my car doing something I really love to do, write, and think, simultaneously.

So there.

I am going to find a pigpile of joy today, never you fear. But for now? Watery.

Humanity

So. (Sew. a needle pulling thread.)

I can’t tell anymore if my moods are because of anxiety about money, or grief, or resentments about past activities. or even the foods I am eating…

How I am stitched together:

I have a therapist, I have fresh veggies in the fridge, I have steps to take concerning money which is more than i might have, my kids are relatively healthy, but boys don’t talk as much as girls and that is deafening sometimes, when they are going through stuff and you only get the spottiest of details and all you can do is cook food for them that you think will make them happy and then you look at your plumpy round belly and recognize where it has come from.

comfort.

How I am falling apart:

reasons for anxiety and mood swings and depression,

  • bad food choices that are super comforting when they actually occur.
  • Hello macaroni and cheese, homemade of course, literally heavy with cheese.
  • i use a test kitchen recipe but I can’t link to it without you having to pay to join and that sucks so much I am going to boycott it. creamy stovetop mac and cheese, if you already pay to play.

3. And then there is candy. I’m partial to cinnamon bears and swedish fish, but also go down hard for chocolate riesen.

4. financial upheaval in the sense that I am still trying to move along with a refinance and trying to dream about a future that is sustainable for me, and might even truly sustain me. like, on the insides, with beauty, work, and joy.

5. i don’t have a lot of energy, which could relate to 1,2,3, or 4, really. And i’ve got a date to attend but I just don’t have any feelings about it and forcing myself to go do it is both good and bad and I’m not sure where I stand on it right now. gah, i don’t want to go, i just want to sit on the sofa and eat my candy goddamnit.

6. I’m heading off to the flower farm this morning, and the beauty will soothe the beast. But one thing I’ve realized now, in my third week of working at two farms, is that my body is not 27 anymore, and I need to be damn careful about how I stand, and how I position myself when I am hauling things, because damn, I need more hot baths than I have time for.

7. Goddamned fucking pandemic is making everyone so afraid still, and everything is tentative and weird and i keep wearing a mask but most people aren’t and I’m just confused as to if one of us is in the wrong or doing something useless. am i doing something useless? really? its exhausting. so goddamned exhausting. and still, nothing to do but feel the feels of the entire fucking world. swampy ground.

8. regular old depression. if you can pick that feeling out from all the others, and normalize it a little, that would feel good, i suppose, if depression feels good.

9. grief. feeling the loss of supports right now, even though new ones are popping up everywhere. grief. loss my shit yesterday at finding a recipe written in my lovely motherinlaws hand. its fine, its fine, i am holding it together.

fine. fine.

all you.

-lovelove.

and don’t worry about me, please, its just life.

Mess. Color. Beauty. Work. Fuschia and Nasturtium and Pansy

Humanity

what i’m doing.

  • i’m crying a fair amount, but now my eyes hurt and i’m trying not to.
  • i’m meditating most days. a guided meditation, so i have even less opportunity to think. thinking is the enemy.
  • i’m working part time in a flower greenhouse, to learn, because i’m dreaming of having my own greenhouse lately and goddamnit, those things are not cheap and are a whole big deal. they arrive unassembled, goddamnit, and empty. (laughing.)
  • i’m gathering all my dreams into a big pile to see what I can make of them, try to make my life something more independent, more in line with the joy and the contentment I have and want more of. fuck ‘work in the schools’. swear to god, i hear that one more time and i will buy a gun.
  • i’m sinking into a deep melancholy that I feel in my chest, losing one of my best supports and loves is an unbalancing force, and I am aware, and so I am doing my best to reach out and gather new supports, and use the ones I have. hello sister. nods.
  • i’m fine. its january. things percolate. i have a working coffee maker, and vitamins. i’ll make it.

love love,

me.

structure with floral design and lights
Yeah, this is NOT how I’m feeling. Photo by Scott Webb on Pexels.com
Humanity

I like being busy.

I know. Its with a certain amount of chagrin that I say this, knowing how I’ve been complaining these past few weeks.

My projects wrapped up. and while there is a tiny thing I could do, I’m finding myself utterly at a loss and swept away by emotions. I do blame perimenopause for some of it, yes, but not all.

working for myself, at home, is not an easy gig.

i’m thinking i might go binge on the walking dead, because i can hide from the gratuitous gore and just hang on to the mystery of who is going to survive or what will ever cause things to get better. (i’m on season six somewhere so don’t say a word.)

the kids are also away this weekend and i’ve had them for the past two, so there is this gaping maw sensation. I’ve got some entertainment in my social life these days but i’m thinking i’m going to take the weekend off from that too. and so, its just me, and tv.

never fear. i’ve got a crockpot going and have fed the chickens and things look normal from the outside. but still. this month. tsk.

Its nice to think about cooking good food. I’ve been assigned brussel sprouts and butternut. Plus, mashed potatoes. All will be well. I can actually just live on those, anyhow, so we’re good.

love you guys. hope your search for food will be fulfilled.

-lovelove

My ladies, of Flying Carrot Farm
Humanity

These are the days of Bartleby.

I’m in therapy.

Hollah, situational depression!

And yesterday I asked to just do a half session because I was boring myself.

If that’s not hysterical, I don’t know what is. There could be an entire skit about this.

These are the days of Bartleby, I tell you. I’m still adjusting to the kids being in school full time, it is so weird to have the house empty all week, and it just keeps happening. I just joked that I kept eating all three lunches. I do crack myself up, depressed or not. Probably save myself a dozen times a day.

This is the third week in a row, of full time schooling, this year. I’ve had them home for a year, with me, growing right in front of my face. There will never be another year like this, I know. I miss the hungry buggers, it is so unsatisfying to have them gone all the time. so very. There is too much time in the day, and yes, I wish everyone else had this luxury and could show me how to handle it. I feel like the family dog, eddie. He’s morose now, with the kids gone all the time. Lots of depression sleeping, more than normal anyhow.

And I hope you know my titular reference, but in case.. Bartleby the Scrivener was a famous character in a Melville serial, famous for saying “I would prefer not to” and those around him were powerless to affect him in any way, because he just kept replying that way. Bartleby, please remove your things from this office…. make me some copies of this… for instance.

“I would prefer not to” is entirely descriptive of a mood that swings through me daily. I get up, I do my thing, I try to protect the hen-pecked chicken, (i’m really not sure she’s going to make it, i want to isolate her but I think that might make it worse- she could lose the few friends she has…) I water the plants, I tend, I tend. I do the things. I do. I even write, or think about writing, or talk about writing. I do. I text. I reach out, gently. But I don’t wanna. I am feeling the ‘force yourself’ of mild depression or pandemica or whatever this is. I’m tired of forcing myself. I want to feel the clarity of ‘I want to.’ and ‘this is fun’.

I’m not joyless or anything, not at all. I am still a beauty hunter and I see it all around me. it’s just not ‘moving me’ like it used to. I need to be dragged, and the ‘to-do’ list of errands and chores is not an effective hook.

side note: there is an actual robin’s nest outside my window, and I watch baby robin’s daily now. So, being depressed in the face of that miracle is really damn hard, so I deserve some kind of medal, right?

second side note: i am starting to make plans to see friends for coffee. so i am trying, actively. super-actively. well, for me.

GIVE ME A MEDAL! DRAG ME OUT OF MY FUCKING HOUSE!

no, i am not asking you to do that. I am just going to put it on the list, though. See if I can force myself through this shit.

(ehem. no thanks, I prefer not to.)

love love,

me

Bartleby, assessing the laundry.