Not
Today I don’t want to write. I want bury myself behind a pile of beads and craft earrings. To cuddle my partner. There are some days when the most important thing you can do for yourself is rest. I’m getting better at recognizing those.
Mile Markers
I try hard to find events I need to attend. Milestones I want to see. Thanksgiving, the birth of my best friend’s baby, a trip to Minneapolis. I search for anything that is too important to miss. My three-year sober anniversary, teaching winter term, moving in with Andrew. There is always beauty to anticipate. I just have to find it. And like Sage Francis said, “If you snoop around long enough for something in particular you’re guaranteed to find it.”
So I keep looking. And I keep hushing down the part of me who says I’ll never find them.
Photo courtesy of Tim Mossholder.
Dark
She reminds me that each day brings us closer to when the days start getting longer again. That in thirty-three days it will be as dark as it’s going to get. I try to remind myself of this when I’m outside smoking a cigarette at 4:30 PM and the sun is already sinking below the horizon. When I’m wrestling with my brain to get me out of bed to go running without light. We’re getting closer to it getting bright again.
Like every year, I take my vitamin D, I try to remember to eat, get enough sleep. And like every year I struggle to take care of my most basic needs while I’m living in the dark. All the things I know I need to do to feel better seem to be just out of reach.
My therapist tells me we’ll work on motivation. My psychiatrist tells me we’ll figure out if my medication is draining me. My sister tells me she’s only always a phone call away. My mom sets up my old apartment in case I need to be somewhere else. Chuck says I can stay “for a night, a week, forever”. Andrew checks in on my wellbeing over and over. Vinnie shares smoke breaks with me. We’re rallying.
There has to be a way to get through this again. I’ve managed it this long, it’s silly to think I won’t be able to this time. But every day my alarm clock goes off and I can’t make myself get out of bed. Today I slept until 9:45 when I had to be at work at 10:00. It’s hard. Everything is so hard. My mom tells me how much fight I have in me and follows it up with, “I just wish you didn’t have to use it all the time.” And I find myself wishing that, too.
I don’t want or need life to be easy. I just need it to be a little gentler with me. But I guess like anything it just comes with practice. It’s just muscle memory.
Photo courtesy of Jason Leem.
Ruby Pipes 