Want
Got nothing done today. My brain sometimes acquiesces and let’s me sleep, but not for long. It’s not a manic thing, either. Not having the luxury of naps to escape…*sigh*
I wonder how long it’s going to take. For lots of things. Meds. Mood. Me. How long does it take to gain a grip?
I’m tired of having very little to get excited about. Tired of being tired.
I want to feel better. I want to BE better. I want to not feel so damn lonely. I want…what I can’t have.
And that’s not frustrating in the least.
Blogged via iPhone
Hollow Him Out, Take Everything.
Yesterday, in a move hardly characteristic of myself, I went to the YMCA to, ugh, exercise. Water aerobics.
First off, I’m not happy in a bathing suit. Yes, I hate sports, know nothing about cars, and I have body issues. So why the hell don’t I get multiple orgasms like the rest of you women? Huh? Not fair.
I didn’t even make it through the whole class, maybe 45 minutes. A bunch of old women kicked my fucking ass. My legs were burning, my heart was racing. The only good part was that it’s hard to sweat when you’re in a pool.
Apparently, you need an AARP membership before you can make it a full hour in a pool with floatie noodles and foam dumbbells. But I did it for 45 minutes, and that counts.
Tomorrow, I have two things to do. First, Tai Chi in the morning. Then, after over a month and a half, I’m finally getting my head CT. Yeah, from passing out and hitting the kitchen floor. The forehead is most certainly cracked; I can feel it. Plus, the headaches are getting more frequent…not where I usually get them, either. They’re in the front of my head. That’s not good.
I don’t know what they’ll do for me when they find out my skull is cracked. But at least I’m getting it looked at, even if it took a while to get approval to get a local CT scan done. Rather than drive two hours, I mean.
Work begins in earnest on the 2HT redesign this week. It’s one of the very few things I’m able to garner any excitement for. Most everything else feels hollow, like I’m just going through the motions.
Nothing seems to matter. Nothing seems to make a difference. I’m tearing up at the drop of a hat. Just last night, I was sniffling while listening to The Cars’ “Just What I Needed.” WTF?!
The fires keep coming, and I’m expected to put them out, to deal with the crises laying all around me. And I barely have the fortitude to get out of bed, let alone take care of problems or go do Tai Chi.
I feel unworthy. Unloveable. That fucking Permeable Teflon skin of mine. Bad goes in, good slides off. It’s automatic.
And when I have conversations like this, it gives me pause. I’m in green, by the way.
I hate when people tell me I need to agree with nice things said about me.
It’s that last bit that is so problematic for me. But Angel, she’s a smart cookie. Maybe you don’t see what she did there, but she used LOGIC. Because logic trumps emotion with me.
It’s the last sentence that really hits.
Your friends kick ass, and they love you, so you must not suck.
That’s a statement of logic. Three of them, actually.
1. Your friends kick ass. TRUE.
2. They love you. TRUE. I’ll accept this, even if I fail to see why most of the time.
3. So you must not suck. ???
That part, I’m struggling with. The first two statements are true, therefore…the last part must also be true. I mean, that’s the logical conclusion, right?
But soaking it up, as Angel says, is not just easier said than done. It’s nigh impossible. So she brilliantly played the logic card, and I’m fighting hard to negate it. Which seems stupid, mostly because it is. Why on Earth would I choose to reject love? Reject nice things? I don’t know the answer to that, exactly.
If I’m loveable, if I don’t suck, if I’m not the horrid vile person the voices in my head tell me I am…then what the fuck AM I? I’ve been this person for 43 years. If I take away the bad shit, what if there’s nothing left holding me together?
I don’t know how to be anyone else. I don’t know how to feel loved, to feel worthy, to feel…good. And it’s a very real threat to me, this loss of all the bad shit. Who am I without it?
I must not suck.
Does not compute.
And is this my midlife crisis, by the way? I’m due for one, I suppose. I’m middle-aged. It doesn’t FEEL any different than my usual depression and angst, though. I’m still not longing to sleep with 23-year-old’s or to drive red sports cars, so that’s something. Unless it’s a red ‘66 Mustang with USB connectors.
Seriously, if I HAD a midlife crisis, would I even fucking know it? I mean, I’m in crisis now. I’m at the middle of my life.
Shit. I am having a midlife crisis.
Fuck, who needs a drink?
Filed under 2HT Mentions, Depression, Exercise, Inside My Head, Local Goings On, Relationships, YOR | Comments (25)It Is What It Is
One year today. A year. How the hell did that happen?
A little over a year ago, I went up to Pennsylvania to see Lisa for the last time. We spent three days together. We both knew what was coming and we had more than just our last visit to get out of the way.
I knew going in that being Lisa’s Power of Blog was going to be rough. I’m still baffled as to why she chose ME to oversee her blog after she left to become that Honky Tonk Girl in the sky.
I sat on the sofa, she in her hospital bed in the living room.
“I don’t get it, Lisa. Why me? Don’t you understand I SUCK at death?”
She smiled and said, “That’s only one part of why you’re perfect for the job.”
“But I cried when Bambi’s mother was killed, and that was a fucking cartoon!”
“John doesn’t know anything about this blogging shit, Karl. I need you to do this for me.”
“Of course I’m going to do it, Lisa. I agreed to do it a long time ago. I just didn’t realize you were going to take me up on it so soon.”
“I’m not happy about it, either,” she said. “But it is what it is.”
I was tearing up then as I looked into her eyes, and I’m tearing up again as I write this.
I’ve always hated that phrase. It’s my logical mind that hates it. It is what it is. NATURALLY. It certainly can’t be what it’s NOT.
We laughed a lot in those 3 days. Cried a lot, too. I watched and marveled at her interactions with her family, how she remained strong for those girls even when she was in severe pain. She rode them about their homework, even from that bed. And she rode me, too.
“I want you to be happy, Karl,” she said the night before I was to leave back for Florida.
I shook my head. “I don’t even think I know what that word means, Lisa.”
“Yes, you do. And you will. Life is too short to be miserable, Karl.”
Weeks after I left snowy PA behind, kissed Lisa goodbye for the last time, and she was gone.
The past year for John and Teeny and Cam, I can’t begin to imagine what it’s been like for them. They were integral parts of Lisa’s life.
Me? I was just a fool who stumbled across her path somehow. We exchanged blog comments, emails, phone calls, texts. We met in person at TequilaCon in Philly and she rocked. She was on my show a couple of times, and it was there that we came up with the Power of Blog, there that she asked me to be hers.
Trying to describe the past year for me, post Clusterfook, is difficult. I’ve been a fucking mess in almost every sense of the word. I didn’t work for pretty much all of 2009, which ultimately cost me my job. My recluse ways were magnified to the nth degree. Even though I went to TequilaCon and BlogHer and other places last year, I really just wanted to stay in my house.
I’ve been a wreck. Being responsible for her blog killed me for a while there. Not knowing how to handle it, not knowing what to post and what not to post on Clusterfook. And just not feeling like I’m up to the trust she bestowed upon me.
Somehow, I think she knew what being Power of Blog would do to me, and for me. I barely knew her in many ways, and yet she wanted me to take this on for her.
I see Lisa every day, and it makes me smile and tear up. Constant reminders on Facebook to comment on her wall, send her a message. On the rare occasion that I put a post together on Clusterfook, and I see Lisa announce a new post on Twitter…oof. Kills me.
That she was concerned with my happiness while on her deathbed…gah. Asking how *I* was while she was dying? But that was Lisa. She was this Zen Rock Bitch with everyone, not just me.
I’m not happy. Anyone who reads my words here knows that. I’m pretty sick of myself, of being miserable, constantly whining and bitching about my life.
But if Lisa was still here, she’d be kicking my ass. She might say something like, “You’re working on it, Karl. You’re making a lot of changes. It’s going to come.”
And I’d say something like, “I feel like I’m throwing bricks in the Grand Canyon, trying to fill it.”
She’d smile and say, “It is what it is.”
And I’d groan and roll my eyes.
I’m working on the happy part, and even if I never get there, I’m gonna keep pushing on. Life’s too short to be miserable.
I miss you, Lisa.
