It's Tuesday

So what? Sigh.

I'm afraid that once again I'm suffering exhaustion.  I can't sleep, my body and mind are tired.  Last night I was in bed by 5:00 pm.  5!!!

On top of that, this has been a bad time of year for me for about the last four years. My depressions always gets the best of me. Why?  No idea.  It just is.  I know it's busy for everyone, but it brings me down so much which bugs me because I LOVE the Christmas season, I do. The lights, the gifts, the food. sigh.

My driver quit, I think that's one reason I'm suffering.  I hired her when I suffered exhaustion before. My doctor told me to take it easy, and I thought that would be money well spent, which it was.  She picked up my kids from school, drove them to lessons, soccer, etc.  Now it's back to me.

I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, and if you've ever lived in the PNW, you know how gray it gets this time of year.

And in general, I'm stressed out about this week because there are music lessons, and Dr. appointments, and choir concerts, and I have to put together and deliver about 55 gift baskets for the law firm, I need to do my Christmas baking, on top of work, rewrites, and being a mom, grocery shopping, cleaning, cooking (which I rarely do anymore with kids schedules and such).

Good thing?  All my Christmas presents are bought.  Most my Christmas presents are wrapped and under the tree.  So, there, I'm ahead of the game.

F³A: Summer

I live in Pacific Northwest. It's where I was born and raised. I love it for many reasons, its mountains, lakes, and rivers, its forests, and waterfalls. It's beautiful here and I will never leave.

However, we have one of the highest rates of depression in the country and I think it all comes down to the sun. It's gray for months on end, from October until March. That's half the year. And the spring months are touch and go where the sun is concerned. And if you're like me, someone who suffers from depression and seasonal affective disorder, that can make for a rough winter.

I long for the sun. I miss feeling the heat of it beating down on my body. I want to be outside walking, or reading, or just laying. (or is that lying? :) I want to feel sweat dripping down the side of my face. I never complain about how hot it is, because I know the alternative.

It's been poking its head out a little bit lately, but I can't wait until it glows full bore in the sky.

I wrote this poem yesterday. My mentor won't look at it yet, but I'm pretty happy with the way its turned out. (It's almost completely different from the first version of itself, but I may tweak it a bit more)

White hot heat
Shimmering brilliance
Humid and inviting.
Filling vacuous voids,
The sinister chasms that
cause eternal downpours
and bone chilling rime.
Perpetual motion
Not to think or cast shadows
No moss collected
merely flow like the current.
Vivid hues, downy clouds,
fluid and weightless
blissful and tranquil

I wait for the dark to subside.

Friday Free For All: Emotions, Friendships, and Life in General

I don't know where to start here. I'm not even sure what I want to say. I have so much going on inside me right now, I can't organize my thoughts, place them on paper in an orderly fashion so that they'll be read clearly and understood.

I'm an emotionally driven person. Sometimes that attracts people to me, sometimes it repels them. I'm full of angst, tears, passion, fire,I'm frenzied much of the time. I have thoughts and feelings roiling within me 24/7. I think it's why I don't sleep well, why I struggle with vices, why I write the stuff I usually write, and why I can only connect with very few people on a deep level.

Relationships are difficult for me. For some reason, I don't get too close, I think it's because when I do, there is always some amount of pain involved. I also don't like to commit to outings because I'm afraid that once that day arrives, I won't be able mentally to follow through. This makes me a bad friend in many ways I know, but it's something that I cannot help.

And what about virtual friends, the ones you meet in chat rooms, and on facebook, and other social networking sites. I'm sure everyone has them by now. How much of yourself can or should you give over to them? The ones I have, I've met mostly through my writing and youtube videos. Some of them I would consider very good friends. But honestly, how much of yourself should you give them? How much should you confide in them? Can they be trusted with your most guarded secrets, your emotions? It's a definite risk, right? Is it worth it? I don't have the answers to all that, but it's something I do struggle with.

And you know what, so many people don't even know who I really am. I think they see me as this playful, carefree, motivated vixen without a care in the world. That's not who I am. Not at all. It's a mask I wear to protect myself. I'm timid and insecure. I wear my heart on my sleeve, and that makes me very vulnerable.

I know these may seem like random thoughts being poured out on a page to you, but believe me, they come full circle for me. Emotions, relationships, friendships, depression...oh yes, I haven't touched on that yet today. My life seems to be in some kind of holding pattern, where I go through the same mistakes, feelings, experiences, over and over again. And any of you who have been following my blog this year,knows that this time last year was not good for me. And even though things are definitely better, I find myself sinking back into a funk. I blame the weather. Yes, I know, it sounds like a cop out, but it's true. The gray skies bring me down. And obviously anti-depressants cannot fix it. SAD(seasonal affective disorder) is the price I pay to live in the northwest I guess. Last night I invested in Vitamin D. I'm hoping that brings at least a few rays of light through the fog. On a positive note, I don't resort to the self destructive things I used to do when I was younger. I just take it, and try to deal with it, heal, and try to make it stick.

My psyche morphs during the year. Ups and downs, happiness to self loathing. No matter how high I get on the ladder, I always fall down, just to make the long climb back up again. Sometimes I think I don't deserve to be happy. Sometimes I even think, maybe I don't want to be happy. But that's absurd, right? Why would anyone not want to be happy? I don't have the answers, but I do know I keep finding my way back down here.

The point? No point really, just ranting. Wanting to get these thoughts out of my head before they make me completely crazy. Maybe hoping maybe just one person out there can empathize, so I know I'm not insane.

That's all I've got.

Song of the Week: The Story by Brandi Carlile

Book of the Week: She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb. Haven't read it in awhile, but have the urge again. I think many women can probably relate to this.

Movie of the Week: Girl Interrupted, in memory of Brittany Murphy

Quote of the week: "Sometimes, I get so consumed by depression that it is hard to believe that the whole world doesn't stop and suffer with me." ~ Elizabeth Wurtzel,
Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America


Thanks for reading.

Kisses :*

Megan