Here's a great meme.
So today hasn't been the most auspicious--woke up to an overdrawn account, had to get out in the rain to drive the husband to a job interview, and now I'm bored and my foot is throbbing (I stepped on a nail yesterday).
It's days like this that I find fighting the depression seems pointless and the world is increasingly overwhelming. I am hardly alone in that feeling, it's a classic "default" attitude of anyone with depression. I find myself sliding toward that yawning abyss if I'm not careful.
My husband very sweetly brought the cat into the bedroom and told her to "Say hello to Mama." That helped momentarily. Cats usually do, and if there is nothing I learned from "Ant Sandwich" it is that cats are the key to lifting depression. At least temporarily.
I've been making a lot of art lately. Drawing, sculpting, painting. My brief foray into puppeteering was fun, and I definitely want to do that again soon. Maybe not the performance aspect (although I felt very comfortable when my puppet didn't have lines, only sounds and movements), but creating the puppets and troubleshooting them and watching them evolve was mega fun. And gratifying--I like it when art objects are also useful. Satisfies my need for form/function harmony.
Art, like kitties, makes things better. I feel in control when I'm drawing or sculpting. Lately, I've been getting a lot of side work (some of it paying, woo!) doing illustrating and little projects. I would love to be able to make a living creating art...seems a little impossible. Fortunately, I like my day job enough that I don't want to throw myself out of my tenth floor office. I enjoy my students, the joy of teaching and watching them grow, and I genuinely like most of the faculty. I'm apprehensive about returning after a hiatus, but kind of relieved to go back to a routine. But I'd always rather be home, curled up in my rocker, with my paints and pens spread out around me.
Another reason for my depression today (besides the weather, my hurt foot and money issues) is the fact that nine years ago I got married for the first time. I'm not sorry about ending the marriage, it was the right thing to do and it drug on way past the point of expiration, but I do regret a lot of things that happened because of that. The loss of my pets. The loss of my then-home (although I love my new home better). The loss of those in-laws, whom I loved and loved me. Even the loss of my ex, in a way, because he wasn't a bad person...just...broken. In ways that weren't compatible to the ways I'm broken. The last couple of years we weren't husband and wife, just very close roommates. I enjoyed going places with him, and sitting on the couch and shooting the shit, but I enjoy those things with my friends, too. I guess I miss him "as a friend", as it were. If you can wrap your head around that...I barely can.
Obviously, my second marriage is much more stable, loving and...whole?...than my first. I have no illusion that if I had stayed married to James I'd be happy now. I'd probably be dead by now. Through no direct fault of his, but I've been through a lot of rough stuff these past few years and he just couldn't handle it. And he had an uncanny ability not only to lie to me, but to lie to himself and he would convince himself everything was okay. When it really, really wasn't.
Mike can handle anything I can't, and does effortlessly. It's amazing how we click and function together, just like a hand and glove. It sounds odd, or like I'm idyllicizing the situation (I'm not--he made me cry today over an argument about Yoko Ono, of all things!), but this has turned out to be the most adult, loving, supportive relationship I've ever had. Yeah, and most people tried to warn me away from him. :D
Bah, I'm waxing nostalgic and feeling sorry for myself. This isn't blogging, this is dithering.
No comments:
Post a Comment