Depression Talk

I accomplished one of my major goals for the summer today, which you can read about here and here

I have to say that making concrete goals and setting out to achieve them leaves me feeling very satisfied. The whole day I worked side by side with my mother, and all day I felt nothing but thrill and happiness. Oh, and sore muscles because I did all of the cieling and high-up places.

I almost wish that every day could be a day like today, despite the fact that it took a LOT of work to get there and even more work to get to where I want to be. It actually took about twenty-five bags of garbage, fifteen wheelbarrow loads of various debris, a nasty lung infection from the dust and mildew, and hours upon hours of backbreaking labor.

I feel satiated on days like today. I know that I can go to bed and sleep well. I know that I have accomplished great things. I know that this is all part of working my way to the life that I want to have.

But days like this, where everything goes right also make me sad. Because I know that not every night will be an easy night for sleeping, and not every night will leave me feeling like that day was worth the while because so much got done.

At any rate, I am enjoying the rush right now from achieving my goals, despite the fact that I’m not celebrating with a beer. Hell, a caffiene-free, carb-free, calorie free cola beverage beats a cold beer any day!

Hurrah!

I’ve recently joined the world of those who work for a living after a three month hiatus. Of course, I did do the whole Berry Farm Management thing, but that was only for thirteen hours a day for twenty-eight consecutive days. Some mammals go through menstrual cycles in shorter periods than that.

Since I’ve been working, I’ve noticed a rather large shortage of time to… I dunno, laze about on my ass and ponder how many hours my next nap should take up.

However, I’m busy again. I have a million things on the go at all times and in all places. I have plans for each of the kids I work with and what I want to see in the next few months. I have plans for things around The Ranch and how I want them to come together. I have plans for the near future and the further away future.

However, I do not yet have a plan as to how I should go about finding out WHY the check engine light is still on in my Little Chevy.

Overall, I have to say that it feels good to be busy again. It feels good on the days that I’ve worked like a madwoman when I fall into bed exhausted. It feels good when I wake up with a concrete task to complete during the day. It feels good to drive home knowing that a pay check with my name on it is on its way. (Despite the fact that ALL of it will have to go to the vet, my parents, the car insurance people, and the damn gas companies. Bastards.)

The good thing about being busy, though, is that my mind is less free to wander about to those topics that can bring a Crazy Person down.

Three cheers for never-ending, back-breaking, mind-numbing labor!

Its not just an expression… Oh, no. Its reality. Except in this case, we’re dealing with straw.

The sun is shining.

The dew is off.

And the fucking wagons have seized.

Oh, happy, happy day.

I woke up in a cuccoon of my blankets last night unable to breathe. At first, I thought that perhaps my trusty blankets had turned on me and decided I must die.

But, no.

It was my hair.

Wrapped around my neck.

I didn’t know that was even possible. If you see any headlines in the next month of a girl being killed by her own hair?

Yep, its me.

1 new message.

From Him.

And I could just delete and continue on with my day. I could ignore the fact that this has been going on for years now, for far too long. I could pretend like it doesn’t break my heart to know that he’s on the other side of the world with someone who isn’t me.

But I don’t, and I read it, and hey! The wedding is coming up next year, and of course he wants me to come. Because what would a wedding be without the broken hearted ex-… Ex what?

And of course he had to go and ask about my damn dog, Dixie who I love and who I couldn’t live without. And I just want to giggle and gush and go on about the ridiculous adventures she’s gone on of late.

But I’m just sitting here looking at the message instead, wondering why someone I’m so done with can still have this power over me.

I’ve been pondering this issue of perpetual alone-ness. For months, or Hell, even years, I’ve put on this bravado of not needing or wanting anyone in my life in the romantic sense. And that is true, to a point. (See: My last post.)

I think the reason it has been weighing on my mind so heavily is that now I’m living in CowTown. There simply is no one for me to meet and fall in love with. (Aside from my horse, that is. My heart would be firmly planted in the palm of his hand. If he had a hand. I suppose that as it stands, my heart is firmly planted in the frog of his hoof.)

So for years I’ve been telling myself, HEY! YOU DON’T ACTUALLY WANT ANYONE IN YOUR LIFE! And to a certain extent, that is still very, very true. But now I’m living in CowTown, and its like this life is saying “You can talk the talk, Sweetheart, but are you gonna walk the walk?” I dunno. I guess time will tell.

At any rate, for the time being? At least some guy doesn’t have to deal with the copious amounts of my hair being found in his apartment. Because Lord knows, the amount of my hair that there is to contend with? Makes me a no-brainer “Sorry, I’m seeing someone else” case until at least September fifteenth.

Phew. Safe for another month. But when this hair comes off? LOOK OUT, single men of CowTown!

A dear friend and I have recently been discussing our single status. We were trying to think up a plan of action last night so that we could avoid having the same conversation over again five years from now. (Or even on a weekly basis from now until five years from now.)

My friend is always quick to point out that I don’t actually want to date, or so I claim, so I don’t really get to complain. I have to say, for all my talk of man-hating, she sort of has a point.

The problem with me lamenting my single status is that I absolutely adore this glorious single-dom. I’m not sure if its the overwhelming number of duds I’ve gone out with or what, but I hate all the to-do that comes with dating someone.

This is not to say that the opportunity to date has not come my way from time to time. I’ve been told what an asshat I am for dumping a number of very suitable suitors for ridiculous reasons. In fact, I get told that regularly.

I suppose the problem is that in being alone, you know what you are going to get. I know that after work, I’m probably going to ride my horse, hang out with my family, maybe play some tunes on the guitar and make some plans around the Ranch. I know that at no point will I sit staring expectantly at the phone, willing the person I love to make it ring. I’ll never have to stand around, all dolled up and with freshly waxed legs, knowing that I’m being stood up. I can pass out in front of all the lame movies that I want, and I never have to wake up in a puddle of anyone’s drool but my own.

Like I said, glorious. This single life is simply glorious.

But then why do I go through a phase every now and then thinking, Man, it sure as hell would be nice to have someone to call on the phone, to cuddle up next to while I watch Degrassi re-runs?

Apologies for the no post yesterday: My internet was not co-operating with me. I have to say that the one major drawback of living in the middle of nowhere is the wonky dial-up internet connection.

Anyhow.

My hair.

When I went to university, I had this goal to not cut, color, perm, streak, or mess with my hair in any way for the duration.

I don’t know why I wanted to do this, other than to see what my natural hair is like, sans additives.

Last January, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. So I decided to donate all my hair to Locks of Love.

But, my best friend got engaged and begged me not to cut my hair until after her September wedding. I figured that would just mean more hair for Locks of Love.

Well, I measured my hair the other day (Because that’s just how cool I am) and I have over fifteen inches of long, straight, brown hair to donate.

And now I have to live with all fifteen inches of it (More than that, because I measured it in a pony tail) until September AND IT IS DRIVING ME CRAZY.

This hair is ON MY PERSON at all times. If I wear a tank-top, it tickles the backs of my arms. When I ride, it is sticking to the back of my neck. It gets tangled in things (Like my cat. Nothing worse than having your hair tangled in a cat) and when the wind blows it stands on end and attacks my face like a rabid squirrel.

It does these things even if it is tied up.

The dogs chase it, babies grab it; it grabs onto my horse’s halter and when all twelve hundred pounds of him walks away? It is very, very hurty.

I have approximately six weeks left of this insanity.

I’m going to need to buy stocks in mousse and many, many varieties of drugs.

I don’t know, sometimes you just have a series of bad days, those days that make you think that maybe, just maybe, you shouldn’t bother to get out of bed.

But then you start your day and the small child you made breakfast for shrieks in happiness instead of demanding something else; and then the small child wraps his arms around your neck four times and says “I love you, Auntie”; and your best friend comes over and you watch two horror movies and then you pick some beans from the garden for dinner; and you also get corn and peas; and you ride your horse and he is just so wonderful you could cry, and then after that you eat so much steak at dinner that you just may make yourself sick…

And you think, OK, maybe I can keep doing this whole ‘being upright and conscious’ thing.

I went away for the weekend to drink and be silly with some girlfriends for my best friend’s bachelorette weekend. It turns out that my sleeping habits were the highlight of everyone’s weekend.

I talk often of my desire to sleep, my need to nap, and the intenseness of my unconcsciousness, but I don’t think that people really get it until they’ve experienced it firsthand.

The first night all of us drunken girls returned to the camper to go to bed. So I announced that I would be having one more cigarette and then I was going to sleep. And then I had my ciggie, and then I laid down, shut my eyes, and was gone.

In the morning my bunkmate was astounded. Like, Dude, you were totally asleep two seconds after you said you were going to sleep! And my best friend was like, Yep, that’s what she does. She announces her need to be unconcsious and then she’s gone.

The following afternoon, I needed my required nap. I laid down on the couch, told the girls I would be going to sleep, and promptly did.

During this time, the other members of the campsite decided to come over and visit with us. At one point, they decided they should do something cruel to the unconscious girl, and they sent in a few people to investigate. I slept on. They decided against tormenting me.

Then one of the guys said that someone needs to do something to that girl. Well, the girls informed him of my hatred for feet. So he decided that he should come in and bother my feet. He reached right into the blanket, pinched my toes, and tickled my feet. I slept on.

He went back outside and announced to the rest of the people in the yard “THAT GIRL IS DEAD. WE NEED A CORONER.”

And while I’m mortified that someone had the gall to molest my poor, innocent little feet while I slept, I have to say that the ability to play dead at will came in very handy.

Because if he had come near my feet while I was awake, he probably would have lost a tooth, his left testicle, and a large portion of his kidneys.

I’ve been having anxiety and panic attacks the last number of days, and I have no idea why. They have lasted hours and at one point I was in my friend’s basement, clinging to the remote control, desperate to find some mindless television with sheer terror and adrenaline coursing through my veins.

Someone recently asked what it feels like to have a panic attack, and I suppose there is no real way to describe it. For me, it feels like no matter what amount of deep breathing exercises I do, I can’t get enough breath. My heart races, my palms sweat. My stomach feels like it is on a roller coaster, alternated with feelings of being squeezed by the Hand of God.

If I’m nervous about an upcoming event, I don’t mind a panic attack. I don’t mind pre-onstage anxiety, I don’t mind fleeting terror when I feel like my horse is about to toss me to kingdom come. I can deal with the heart-stopping anguish when I worry that I’ve lost my nephew while I’m caring for him (He can generally be found coaxing my neagle to love him with a box of Milk Bone).

What kills me about this is that I don’t know why I feel the way I do. I’m overcome with these horrid feelings, for two to five hours at a time, and I DON’T KNOW WHY. I’m a very compartmentalized person. I like everything to be defined, neat, tidy, and put away in a little box. I can deal with being a crazy person, because there are a plethora of reasons behind it.

I can not deal with anxiety coursing through my veins for no apparent reason at all.

I’ve had fits of anxiety and panic twice this week. I’m very irritated at them because for one thing, I can’t seem to pinpoint why I had them. And for another thing, I’m on enough drugs to sink the navy. I’m not supposed to have panic attacks any more.

At any rate, two of them in one week, and my word, feeling like your head is going to explode and that you’re going to suffocate in broad daylight for hours on end is exhausting. But no, I mean, like, its more than exhausting.

I suppose if I was to describe the way I feel after a good, long anxiety attack, it would be something like a deflated balloon. One that spent all day out in the sun at a carnival, in the hands of a hyperactive toddler. Only, half way through the day, it got deflated and left the hands of the toddler, to be picked up and dropped repeatedly by small birds. But the thing is, the last time it got dropped by a bird, it landed on the free way and spent a good three hours being smashed into the pavement by transports.

Yeah. That’s it. I think I’ve got down how it feels to have survived a panic attack. You’d think the feeling would be more virtuous, victorious… but no. I felt like someone in need of intensive care and a six week order for bedrest.

Life at the Ranch House has seemed stressful lately. Perhaps that’s because since the twenty-third of May we’ve had something going on literally EVERY SINGLE DAY. No joke. Eight weeks of radiation therapy overlapped my moving home, graduating university, buying a horse, and going to berry season. Since we returned home from BerryLand, we’ve had visitors or something on each day.

Now, some of it has been brought on myself, no doubt. The horse, garden, yard work and so forth I’ve been doing? All my choosing. And of course, we could have opted out of berry season this year, but really… its kind of a must for the female members of this household to attend berry season.

So, I’ve booked myself a vacation. Sort of last minute, I suppose, but last night I talked to my dear friend Mal, and it was decided that I should come stay with her for six days. Hurrah!

Bring on the beer drinking, sleeping in, ready access to high speed internet, chain smoking, late nights, napping all day, reading mindless novels, AND NOT SWEATING FOR ONE SINGLE SECOND.

Damn, this is gonna be good.

If someone’s future mother-in-law whispers under her breath that she thinks you’re crazy, does that make you crazier than you really are?

I’ve been in a blind rage all day today, no telling why. I woke up perfectly content, rode my horse, recieved a call from my dearest Berry Queen who later arrived with her kids. We went fishing briefly and then returned back to The Ranch to swim the afternoon away. I’ve been on edge and ready and willing to holler, screech, and contemplate beating anything that crosses my path. Including inanimate objects.

I don’t know why I’m in such a foul mood: Everything is going perfectly. The cancer treatment is behind us, we made it through another berry season. I have my horse, my beautiful, wonderful Thoroughbred gelding who I love. He lets me scratch his ears and kiss his nose AND he lets me ride him. Seriously. Like winning the horse lottery, that one is.

And yet this rage consumes me over every action every person or thing takes. So far today I’ve considered taking up kickboxing, a vow of silence, buddhism, alcoholism, prescription drug abuse, and a combination of any of those things listed. At one point I was thinking that perhaps I’d feel better if I took up all of the above at the same time.

I just can’t work out the logistics of a drunken, sedated, silent, praying girl trying to kick box her way into happiness.