A Letter I Can't Send

I can write you a letter

I'll make it so you can see

I'll write it so things look better

And hope that you never read


I don't want to show you

I'm not sure I can go there

I don't think I can take it

The pitying stare


I've written these letters

They never go out

They hold all the secrets

And fill me with doubt


How will you see me

When you really can see

What will you think then

What will it mean?


When you see what I'm made of

When you know what I am

The dark steals the light

And it's all that I am


When the curtain is lifted

And I step on the stage

You'll know what was missing

You'll know my real name

Spiral

If you have ever lived in the fear-shame-hate-disgust tail-chasing spiral that is a seething depression, you know that there are moments of despair.

Moments where you are not sure if you ever lived outside of the spiral, you start to think maybe you were born there. Maybe this is where  you will die. These moments wrap around you like a blanket but with all the comfort of a cactus. Once the needles settle in, the pain becomes normal. You get used to it. And you know that pulling them out would casue pain, whereas sitting where you are is the devil you know.

Sometimes, (if you are lost in the fog that is forgetting who you are), you stare off into space.

This can be one of the only useful things about a depression. Since you are devoid of the ability to track time, you can mosey through the spiral at your own pace. If there is a break in the action, you can always peek through the thinning layers and find yourself thinking about things the way a counselor might lead you to your own answers.

I thought to myself:

I am afraid.

What of? it asks.

Well, of not being good enough.

Good enough for what?

As good as others who have gone before me and who have done what I hope to do.

Why do you think they are better?

Because they got it done.

Maybe they were afraid.

Maybe. But they did it.

How?

Well they had more resources. They did it earlier, it was easier, cheaper.

So? You could make the changes and do the things necessary to make it happen. You are resourceful.

I just never have any time....Wait...well...because I fill it......with things...to busy myself...so I can't attempt this...because I am afraid to fail....

I shut that show down with the practiced hand of someone who knows just how dangerous that line of thinking can be. Its hard to keep pushing yourself up when the other half of you pulls down.

One of my arms rows the boat one direction and the other arm rows the opposite. The spiral stops sometimes, but only because I'm at war with myself. I can see the entire thing in action- I am afraid (fear) I am not good enough (shame) this is impossible (hate) Other people can do this and I can't (disgust). I can't face this kind of change (fear again). And around we go.

The taste of giving in must be what heroin feels like to an addict. It is desirable beyond compare. The reason I do not give in is that I cannot breathe, and I keep pulling up for air. Each time, it takes a bit more away from the grip. The spiral is not won with heroics, it is won with survival. If I could live without breathing, I would still perish.

Who Turned Out The Lights?

I want you to know that I am not well
But apathy is quiet so I cannot tell

I want to climb this hill, to scream and shout
Reclaim what I am (if I ever find out)

Someone has turned out the lights.

I am being  pulled into a well, I am trying to yell
But the words aren't coming and no one can help

There is an emptiness now where my thoughts used to live
There is a stranger living here - one that takes but won't give

Someone has turned out the lights.

I know this is not the way I used to be
I need to do something to make it leave

But now there's no pain, the agony is a memory
The dull is not an ache, more like a quiet melody

Someone has turned out the lights.

I think I like it here in the dark
I'll make it my home and give it my mark

It's more comfortable, really... I like it this way
Now leave the lights off, close the door. Go away

I have turned out the lights.

The Best Job You Can Imagine

One time I wrote here about my horrible job (one of the twenty or so times, really) and to lift my own spirits, I also listed what I thought were among the best jobs. I now realize that I set the bar so very very low, and I am here to rectify that situation.

This blog got its title from the numerous lists I make all the time, and sometimes I bring them here for show and tell. Today is one of those days. Let's not make a list of the best jobs there are. Let's make a list instead of the best jobs you can even fathom. The best there could be. Open your mind to the possibilities of getting paid for...well, anything! That is the measure of success, is it not? To find yourself being compensated for doing that which you find pleasurable. To work and get paid at doing something that you find energizing and fun, or at least being wildly over-paid for something simple and easy.

What if the job did not have to be something found in your high school guidance counselor's guide to getting your life together? What if you could determine what you wanted to do, then get paid for doing it?

Let us have a go at it. In honor of now having a job I do not hate, I'm sure we can come up with something better than mattress tester:

1. Wealth Manager for Leprechauns
2. Unicorn Rancher
3. Puppy Play Date Manager
4. Grass Hill Rolling Quality Control Supervisor
5. Cloud Shape Deciphering Technician
6. Rainbow Construction Foreman
7. Nail Polish Namer
8. Baby Lamb/Hippo/Elephant/Giraffe/Pig Nursery Monitor
9. Travel Photographer (I know, but who doesn't want to do this?)
10. Actor/Actress- my all time (I hate making lasting decisions) favorite. You get to play at being everyone.

Get out your favorite bottle of something lovely and let's dream up new lives...

Dizzy

Lately, an interesting thing has happened. Well to be fair, it started a long time ago. Then it came back. That is really the theme of this situation in the first place.

Like most people, at some points in life, I have experienced deja-vu. I'll be standing at a sink washing my hands, or I will be getting out of a car, looking at a book on a shelf, it makes no difference where I am or what I am doing when it hits. So far so good. Then, sometimes, the deja vu feeling takes on a very strange aura. I feel like I have done this before,  but then the memory of that time comes into focus. I start to see where I was and what I was doing, and I can see it in my mind, it is slipping away and I try to reach out mentally and grasp at it, to get it in my hands so that I can tell why this is making me feel this way and BOOM.

I'll get hit by the freight train of memory and synapse firing that takes me to the floor... I have to let go of trying to figure out what I see in my mind's eye or the swirling rush takes over. Once I let that out of focus and put it out of my mind, I can settle down the spinning room and get my equilibrium again.

The first time this happened was most likely many years ago. I remember a few instances that made me feel awful and one that sent me to a school nurse. But they are distant memories, and it went away for so long. Then about 8 years ago, I went on a vacation. I dreamed about the place we were going to be staying and I saw this wonderful back deck on a house overlooking a beautiful wooded green area. It was a great dream and I was excited for the trip. Then we arrived at the place. I went out to the back door and outside to the deck. Next thing I know I am on the ground. I KNOW in my heart I have been here before, done this before and that this is the exact same as I saw it in my mind. How could that be? I had to let it go and not try to find out, so I could get my footing and go splash off my face.

I felt woozy for a few hours after that. Then it went away. For a few years. It has come back a few times, always dangling some interesting memory in front of my consciousness, never allowing me to grab it. I've talked about this before, and I think I write about it as a way of putting it out there, trying to understand. More than anything I want to know what is on the other side of those shimmering visions that I cannot grab. I would allow any amount of dizziness and spinning to just get it in my hands.

There is a white rabbit that lives in my mind. He beckons me to follow him down the rabbit hole. Why can't I go?

Spin Cycle

I have established on this blog before that I am not in good physical shape. That being said, I am not a monstrous behemoth, roaming the landscape snatching up trees to quell my hunger until the next herd of buffalo comes along.

I thought for sure that I was overweight. Close to obese, maybe. I knew that I needed to work on things, carve out time for myself, stop drinking so much, cut out the empty calories. I've read books. I know what the problem is.

Much like with all exercise starts and stops in my life, I went into the fitness center at my old college with gusto. I had it all figured out (again). Classes were the way to go. Left to my own devices, I will wander the area, pick up a few weights, run for a bit, do a bit of some random machine and then lose interest and wander back to my car. What I needed was a class. Where I was accountable for 45-60 minutes of real exercise. Those were the times I felt like I got a work out. Spin class scheduled for 5:30 pm? That cannot be a coincidence. That is the one for me.

Our instructor showed up ten minutes late, made jokes about people in the class, did not give any instruction on how to use the bikes and had a Manti Te'o meets frat boy vibe about him. Those are the things that went well.

I hustled myself onto the pencil eraser, ahem, bike seat that was perched atop the stationary motorcade to hell. I readied myself for some physical exertion. People said exercise was good for stress and I had a boss who perfected the vice grip. This would be a great day.

Turns out our instructor was into sado masochism and had us 'do hills' for a while. As I was new to this level of exercise, he pointedly asked me if I was alright when my face turned a shade of beet that us Irish do so well. The whole class looked worried as if I might cause a scene involving paramedics. I was determined to show them.

In the end, I made it through. I finished the class. Victory was mine. So was this bike, because I couldn't get off of it. While I mentally calculated how hard it would be to take it down the stairs with me, I was rescued by my husband who had finished working out and knew a problem brewing when he saw it.

We went down the stairs, me leaning heavily on him. I couldn't bend at the knee and I couldn't use any muscles in my legs. No amount of drinking water during the class had stopped the lactic acid build up and I staggered about like a broken ballerina doll to the car.

I don't think I need to tell you that it was the last spin class I went to. I don't know who is more relieved about that.

A Sense Of Humor

The powers that be, the universe, some deity somewhere is laughing at me for my  latest library book (Atheism, A Reader)... and one of them has a sense of humor. I think I like where it is heading.

I know...it has been a long time. You must be wondering what happened. I bet you thought I was missing because I got a book deal. I am sorry to report (so very very sorry) that is not the case. What did happen, while far less lucrative, proved to be a much more valuable lesson.

Let's catch up... (insert montage of scenes from previous episodes here, capturing all the drama and major story movements). I was working at a community college and had a terrible spiteful bald man-baby of a boss who hated women only slightly more than he hated himself. We also had a character at the office, the "Indiana Jones" per his unusual safari clothing, was a sad old man with lots of personal problems, only topped by the boss himself.

One day Indy flipped out, yelling at me and throwing things. My attempts to smooth it over and deflect him made things worse. In less than five minutes' time, I witnessed someone break every workplace rule in an attempt to take their frustration with the boss out on me. Kids, I grabbed onto that vine like Tarzan himself threw it to me. I know a message from the universe when I see one. It was my ticket out and it was made of shiny gold.

That was in October. The ensuing two months were filled with drama. The boss was super nice (not wanting me to sue, I'm sure) then he was awful when he got wind of the fact that someone had written a note to district officials outlining his terrible behaviors and racist, misogynistic, sexist rants as well as misuses of public funds, you name it. It did not take long for him to turn his hate gaze on to me. HR was in a kerfluffle, trying to keep me stringing along all while doing nothing as the bureaucracy tied their hands behind their unusually stupid backs.

I made a move. In life, as in poker, sometimes you need to know when to throw down. Go all in, put on your best face and dare them to call you. It is a risk, to be sure. It paid off brilliantly.

Knowing the deck was stacked in an unfavorable way, I told HR to pound sand, that I did not need their help and that I was sure I could solve things myself with a lawyer and the local media, who just LOVES hearing about misappropriation of public funds right after a messy government shutdown.

A little time slipped by, things got worse, then....a meeting was called. But not with anyone I knew. Someone wanted to meet me. To see if I would be a good fit for them. They had a problem too. We met, it went wonderfully, they liked what they saw. I went back to work thinking - well, whatever. I won't hold my breath. I didn't have to. They uprooted someone to get rid of them and that person got..... MY OLD JOB!

Apparently this curmudgeonly little hobbit was a real 'treat' to work with and was bringing everyone down. The people I met really wanted some good energy and thought I could bring that to the table. A higher power of people got together and a deal was made. I felt a little like a football player being traded to a better team. The analogy ended up being very close.

My old boss got his worst nightmare- an older woman with no interest in going outside her comfort zone to do anything she isn't used to doing, with limited experience and no experience running the kind of office I left. My new boss is a wonderful woman with an outlook in life to help others get the tools and resources they need to be successful and to maintain a professional yet fun office atmosphere. She trusts me to do my job, she answers me honestly and tells me what she is thinking and wants my input.

The forces that be heard everyone's cries. My misery and the problems that plagued another place were put into a blender of mismanaged bureaucratic red tape and what emerged was magic. I have the place of work I deserve. So does my ex boss. Sometimes when you have nothing left, you have nothing left to lose. I took a risk, then another and another. It landed me where I am now. Imagine what might happen if I am willing to bank on myself again. This could be the beginning of a gambling habit that leads to that book deal after all...and there won't even have to be a bunch of cocaine stories involved. Viva la Universe!