11:47 a.m. - 10/05/03
wonder what it's like.
So, I finally begin to feel I have a handle on this whole concept of "liking myself" - and what happens? I start *not feeling* like her. I don't feel like myself. Myself, when I was (more) sick (than this), perhaps, but who is she? She's no one, almost. She's mostly a shadow trapped inside a rhythm not her own.
I miss myself. And that seems pathetic.
At the Walk yesterday, I felt seriously out of place. Not during, really, - during the walk, surrounded by thousands of smiling people in brightly colored t-shirts, stepping it through the park to raise money for autism research - I felt ok. Even glad that I had not bailed on getting up at 7:30 after being awake for three hours at 4. But before the walk, sitting around with all the people, a few inches of asphalt away from Robyn's oldest son, who's a high school senior, his girlfriend, and his girlfriend's sister, I felt completely mismatched. And maybe it makes sense since I haven't actually been in high school since I was fifteen. Maybe it makes sense that I always feel confused and slightly intimidated by that age group. But it's also annoying as hell...because it's *my* age group. These people may not be my peers, but they are my age; they're the people most likely to think "possible friend" when they meet me. And sometimes I'm a little tired of only feeling comfortable (generally) with people five years older or five years younger than I.
Of course, if there were a good portion of those five years older folk around...but that's another story.
Oh, and, my subconscious seems to have some input on where I land sexually speaking. Unless it's just toying with me by using imagery I understand and find slightly less nightmarish than other imagery. Also, (and entirely unrelated, I hope) I'm going out with my dad today. I feel compelled to pray a rosary. And I feel compelled to beat myself up for saying that. I'm confused, of course. I remember when my parents were both evil, and now there's this whole idea of my mom being more healthy than she was, and also more healthy than my dad, and how the hell am I supposed to feel ok, bashing my dad who(m) I love and not my mom?
But like I said. *I'm* not feeling much of anything because I'm not exactly around. Damn it. And the really annoying thing is, I almost guarantee this is circumstancial depression. I'm almost positive (as in certain, not optimistic.) And that's seriously unfair because as much as I hate popping pill after pill after pill, as much of a nuisance as it would be to have to try yet another anti-depressant (I think if we raise the dose on the one I'm on *yet again* I turn into a purple penguin or something...and it's not that I'd mind that. But it would make continuing the therapeutic process just that much more difficult) - I wish we could medicate it away. Because, hi, I don't like being depressed. I'm past the "ooh, read my poetry; dark is beautiful" phase. I'm bored! I want to live my life. And, oh, doesn't that sound healthy!
So don't you understand, a little, can't you imagine just this much - what it's like to feel this way, and run out into the city, and realize you have to retreat back into your apartment or your anxieties and depressions and shame/ed-voices are going to eat you alive? You understand, right, how unfair it is? To finally know what it's like to be alive, to want it despite the cost and the effort and the pain, and to be here. Waiting. Wondering what it's like to have friends who aren't in pain. (Can I be friends with someone who hasn't been through mental illness and/ or huge life pain?) What it's like to be out there, being. Wondering, what did I talk about before I got sick? What can I talk about "after"? Now? Where can I be comfortable, balanced even, between my need to help in the world that I know (of sickness) and live in the world I love (of health)?
And on top of it...the restlessness is rising, the inability to commit, and so forth. I need a new template. I need it soon.
Favorite recent googlism: MARY IS LOOKING TO HIRE HUNDREDS OF MONSTERS. (I secure my smiles where I can.)
chord
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