Truthfully Speaking..

***this is sort of a bitch rant that I wrote a few days ago. I wasn't going to post it, but YOU the reader, should know that I'm not in a good place. I'm more positive now that I will get out of it, but read the below and see how bad it got. Please note, this is not a cry for help. I have no intention of hurting myself or anyone else. I kinda got this shit handled. Kinda.



Fairy tales in reality rarely have happy endings, because fairy tales aren't reality. Truthfully, fairy tales are just words put together to put a child to sleep at night, Not to be used as a life quest.
Yet, we do it, we search for happily ever after, then settle for the happily for now. Our happy highs directly impact our misery lows, thus the happier you are now, the more depressed you'll be when you are down.
I was really, really over the moon happy a few weeks ago, so needless to say, I'm not  having a great day or week, well, month. I am at an all time low, and I don't know if I have the strength to climb out of this one. Definitely not on my own, yet there seems to be no one that I want to turn to this time. There are plenty of people who would jump to my rescue with a hug and some kind words, but what I really need is time alone to reflect, time to take out the noise of the world listen to the silence of loneliness and get back to that centered, balanced point, where nothing is perfect, but I'm ok with it.
I think it seems easy enough, but then I think, really, what is the point of it all?
I get help, I get better, I'm at that happy point, until my meds stop working, or maybe people just become more assholey, and I am back to the deep depression. It's an endless cycle. I really didn't exaggerate the fact that depression doesn't just go away. It haunts you everyday, even when you think you got the right meds. At some point, I'm going to give it up. At some point, I'm going to work up the courage to say good bye to my children and family for the last time and just let go of it all. If it weren't for my children, and my fear of damaging them by abandoning them, I might have succeeded at some point already.
Which is what I want to do now, but instead find myself sitting in my car in the way back of an empty parking lot, with no immediate plans, other than to write this and cry for the next 30 minutes or so.
Then what, go back to my family and pretend that life is all about happily ever after? Probably. Hopefully, I get good news this week on the job front, which would give me benefits, and a good doctor to help me sort it out. Otherwise, if someone has a cabin deep in the woods far away from everything, let me know if I can borrow that shit for a weekend

In My Life, I've Loved You More

I have been sorting and cleaning through old items, journals, and pictures this week. Not that I have really saved much since I went through a period last year in which I felt the need to throw away all the things I had been holding on to for memories sake. However, luckily something wonderful survived that purge. My journal from 10-16 years old. In it was birthday memories, forgotten friends, and best of all, my poems and short stories that I had written during that period, ones of happier times, before the darkness of depression consumed my thoughts and words. One particular story, The Friendship Tree, was based off my experience of moving to a new school in 3^rd grade. For a full year, I had no school friends. (I had one good friend who lived behind us, but she was in 2^nd grade). During recess,  I shyly watched all the other kids play, wishing for the courage to try to join them. I had a few instances in which I’d join in, only to feel even more left out than before. Standing there waiting for someone to kick the ball my way, or tag me, when no one ever did, I felt invisible.

According to this story, I spent a lot of time on the swings, or climbing trees. One day, I noticed a group of girls running around way back in the trees, like a secret group. I watched carefully as they played every day, finding out what they would play, never really figuring it out. 3^rd grade ended and still I lacked the courage to join in. Sure enough, 4^th grade came around, one of the girls was in my class that year, noticed that I was alone and asked me if I wanted to join them. I smiled and came over, expecting to be invisible again, instead I was given a secret Indian name, and thus was inducted into the Indian club.  (Although sometimes it was the American Girls Club or something else.) These girls became my friends, and best friends during that year all the way up to 8^th grade. Without having met them, I don’t know where my life would be, but I’m thankful, they’ve had a part in helping me to grow up to the woman I am today. Really, I tell it so much better in the story written by a 16 year old me.  I should actually just post that, but I’m wondering off from where I want this blog to go.

These friends, started out as 12-15 girls, by the end of 4^th grade we were down to 8- 10 girls, and each year we lost a few more to other cliques, but there were 4-6 girls who I felt inseparable from. We would sit with each other every day in grade school, meet for sleepovers, bowling trips, mall trips.  We did girl scouts together, and joined school clubs together, all the typical BFF stuff. It was these girls that taught me how to do a cart wheel, flip on a trampoline, and tried to teach me how to dive during one summer.

High school changed us, the group of 6 split into 3 different groups, one going off to a much larger clique, myself and another friend heading off into another smaller clique, while 3 others stayed together and found another girl who matched more who they were trying to become. Out of High School I had a whole new set of friends who I was able to go wild and find trouble with. I had one friend from the original 6, who despite the fact that we were constantly changing and so different from each other, and never really in the same place in our lives, somehow managed to stay friends with each other. Until, a fatal car crash tore her away from me almost 10 years ago. Her birthday is coming up on Monday, she would have been 31.

I have had so many friends along the way, friends that I had felt just as close with, but it is her that I long to have back, because she was the only one who knew how crazy I had become, and didn’t care. She didn’t walk away. She had friends who were richer, and cooler, and more stylish than me, but that didn’t matter to her. She was the one who invited me to the play by the tree, she stuck by me from that day on. I recently had a dream about her, one in which she was just in a coma for the last 10 years and it was my job to re-introduce her to the world. It was the best dream ever because I had my best friend back, and we were up to all of our old shenanigans, but when I awoke, it was with the heartache of loss all over again. Ugh, this wasn’t supposed to be a sad blog, and I drifted again.

So, my point was, these friends of mine, whose paths have drifted so far from where we all started, are now all my Facebook friends, all mothers and wives, mostly on the same path, maybe a little different. Although we aren’t close enough to be BFFs again, I’m glad to have them back in my life, even if it’s just electronically.