Cumulative Effects

Yes, I know I'm depressed. Yes, I have an appointment today with my psychopharmacologist, aka, my shrink.

Yesterday was hard. I realized that I am not over Katy's death and I am not over Phoebe's death. The Taylor scare was almost a direct hit on her scrawny hide and if I didn't have her to press to my heart now, would be in another tally column.

I realized last night and this morning that I have had a lot of unpleasant things happen to me that I've yet to recover from. Part of this is because I've been in a battlefield situation for the past 11 years. I'll spare myself and everyone else the fact that this has been going on since, oh, 1956.

And I also just realized that I don't want to do a year-by-year toting up of the sad, bad stuff. It's sufficient (and avoidant behavior) to say that a lot of bad stuff has happened and I haven't had time to recover from one bad thing when another bad thing bounces its way into my cave like a hand grenade.

I only know that it has left me sad and exhausted.

Along with the grenades jumping around like Mexican jumping beans, I have to deal with the fact that Everyone's Gone to the Moon is a way of life for me at certain times of the year. I think it's fair to say at this point in my life, I will not suddenly become Miss or even Ms. Popularity and will have to sit in my boudoir with my morning chocolate fetched by my maid, creasing my pretty little forehead with worry over which invitation I will accept. EGttM days are hard on me. I thought I had prepared for this one, but it didn't work out that way. And I didn't have the emotional wherewithal to pull together a Plan B.

I know that if another grenade gets tossed into the cave, I'll deal with it. It's what I usually do. Only I have to figure out a better way of dealing with them than throwing myself on them, belly-down. Throwing them out of the cave doesn't seem to be an option.

I realize this sounds like it's out of self-pity, but it is actually a question. Asked of the universe (silent, as usual) and God (silent, as usual), but I wonder when I'll get a break. Worse yet is the thought that maybe I've had a break. That I'm having one now and not a psychotic break. That would require too much energy and the tank is on E at the moment.

When I consider breaks I would like (right now I'm thinking of a massage in a glass-windowed room overlooking the prow of an ocean liner in the Caribbean), I realize how unlikely they are.

Then I go off to brush my teeth, take a shower, and go to work. And be grateful that I have a job to go to.

I think that overall, this stuff is going to add up and become its own grenade. And it's going to be one big motherfucker.

Ever the optimist, c'est moi.