Taking "be-ing" time...

The last several days have been difficult.  It seems that graduating from college is rather like coming home from a long, long, grueling travel.  That's it!  I feel like Bilbo coming home from his adventures with the Dwarves.  That must have been quite an odd thing for him if you pause and think about it.  He had gone from this quiet person who was more concerned with a good bite with tea, checking for his daily post, and the perfect bowl of pipeweed than anything else.  He is then swept away without so much as a pocket handkerchief, the put into danger, adventure, foreign lands.  He fights for his life.
Cornish isn't quite that crazy in the adventure that is the journey to a BFA however the bewilderment of finally being done must be quite the same.  I haven't the foggiest idea of what to DO with myself.  Obviously, I'm still working at my dear little theatre, but there is all this time to be accounted for.  I can finish knitting and sewing projects that have languished for months, and years.  I could spend all day watching movies and no one will get mad at me.  There is no more homework.  It's utterly baffling.
I have been out of sorts due to this change; crying spells, poor sleep, etc.  Sweet and kind friends remind me that this is okay.  There is no right or wrong way to feel about graduating college.  I am pleased to have finally accomplished this goal, but never really considered how it might feel.  You imagine it when you first start out, how the end goal will feel.  Ultimately it feels so very far away.  And it many ways, it is.  Four years away.  Before you know it, before you have time to turn around and draw a breath, there you are, standing at the cross roads seeking a new direction to turn.
Much of my life will remain the same.  I'm living in the same place, loving the same man, working at the same job.  Only there is more space for breathing, and feeling human, and doing life things.  If I sit down and start thinking about all of them, it gets a bit overwhelming, so I have compromised with myself.  One simple, super easy list each day.  Something out of the house, something around the house, something so easy you can't help but accomplish it.  When it's done, that's all one needs to do. Nothing more, nothing less.  Breathing, just allowing myself time to be.  Organising, ordering, cleaning, and arranging.  Little silly things that give me peace of mind and help me remember who I am.  

Time Passes

A year ago tomorrow someone I barely knew suddenly left my life. A week after their Grandpa went home, so did my little Blueberry. I like to think my Grandpa went first so he could hold their hand and keep them safe for me, and the thought makes me smile despite the sadness.

Today I knit another piece for Project Hope, in hopes of the future and all that will await me.

One Week Ago:
Yesterday marked the first day of having to take medication to treat my depression. As much as I think I'm on the right path and it's the best treatment for me right now, I hate it. I don't want to be sick, yet I am. I don't want to cry because I hurt inside, yet I do. It comes and goes, but when it's here, my black dog gnaws at me and disrupts my regular life and it's time to stop that.
I wake up feeling like I'm in a fish bowl and I go to sleep knowing I will get no rest. Ways to end my life pervade the corners of my mind while I go about my daily routine.
Before you begin to worry too much, let me say that I don't want to die before God calls me home. I have too much to live for. I have promised myself and my fiance that I won't hurt myself any more, I won't cut my hair, I will eat my meals, and I will get help. So I'm taking medication.

It's making me a little groggy, but I'm doing okay. In three weeks I go back for an evaluation to see if this is the right treatment for me. Until then I'm slipping from one day to the next, an insomniac for the most part who is exhausted but cannot find much rest.
If you have a spare moment, pray that I can find a way around this and that I can achieve healing in the end of this journey.

Today marks the day where I up my medication, and rather than keep the negative attitude about it (groaning to myself each time I look at that little pill in my palm) I've come up with a little mantra. "You don't have to take this forever. Just for now, just until you're better." So I want to work harder at fixing this sweet silly self of mine and get to the feeling better part. Soon.

A Tussle and The Status Quo

If you haven't noticed, I struggle, fight, and tussle with depression. Only I don't call it that. I call it my Black Dog, in reference to the incomparable Winston Churchill. During the spring I grappled with the Black Dog, and I won, for a little while. It's a constant war with minor battles going to one party or the other. And now I find I have turned my back on him for too long. He's bitten me again, only it's gentle. There's no blood, just a bruise. Just his teeth on my throat reminding me he's always there. Only this time I don't feel the overwhelming urge to wallow in uselessness, I am merely saddened by events in my life. They aide the Black Dog in catching me with my guard down. They put me in bed in tears for all that has occurred, for all that I have lost and am missing. I almost, almost didn't go to work yesterday for want of staying in my bed. However I find my spirit is strong and stubborn, two factors that have helped me fight the Dog for so long. I stubbornly walked up the hill to where I catch my bus, had a cup of coffee and wrote in my journal for the better part of an hour and a half. It eased the ache inside, just watching my hand put letters on the page, pouring out my inner thoughts and emotions. I was able to go to work, and perform decently, and was blessed with laughter. Sweet, carefree laughter. I would have rather gone home to my lover that night, than to my own bed, but not yet.

I woke today to see that Fall has officially arrived. The leaves turned without my knowing. The fog blankets Puget Sound, and all is chilly and perfect woolen sweater weather. Perfect to curl up with a good book, a cat, some knitting, hot cocoa and company and just be. Take time to be.

Pardon the rather overwhelming amount of "sad" posts, but that's what I'm feeling. I feel alone. I feel like I have to throw up constantly. I feel so squished and open all at the same time it's a little maddening. I've lost him and I'm not sure how to proceed with my life alone. There is a lump in my throat that is not going away. There is an ache in my heart that cannot yet be relieved. I wonder if this is how old empty houses feel? Those achingly lovely turn of the century confections that make my heart happy. How do they feel when there are not people inside them? Rather like I do without my boy. I know it's going to take time, and I know I'll have good days again (like yesterday), but the bad days come and take all the sunshine away. All the hope I work up throughout the week to make it to the weekend that the next day won't suck as badly as this one does gets stolen away in one breath.



I have been told by some to have a meaningless fling with some random person as some party. That will ease the loss. Perhaps that would work for some people, but I am an artist. I feel things differently than some, and not at all for others. Music moves me, it surges through my very blood and makes me shiver. I told a friend once music does to me what alcohol and drugs do to others. That same heady, reckless, restless, feeling that sits in your heart and makes you move. You can't sit still. I can't sit still.
Relationships with people are similar. I ache with love when I watch someone I love sleep beside me. I drink in moments and save them for later, for winter when I'm cold, for being alone. The happy blissful golden moments that are kept in my soul. Mothers know this feeling, they drink in the ephemeral moments of their babies. The first words, first steps, first smiles, laughs. They soak it up and save it for later to soothe them when the child has become an adult and left.



Sitting alone is dangerous right now. Having no where to be, and nothing to do leave me restless and empty. Everyone is at work, or school, or running errands before I woke up and I'm left alone in my room with only the ghosts for company. Trying not to go crazy thinking about what I've lost, and hoping, praying for what is to come. If I had a cat, I would being cuddling it a lot right now. It makes me want something to care for again. A cat, a baby, something, anything. It makes me want to do a play or go to work just for the excuse of having to be somewhere. Sitting alone, something I relished when I was younger, is deadly to me now.

She trudges on

I am in a bubble of space that isolates the outside world from my senses. Touch comes slowly, sounds are the first to assail my battered mind. Thoughts, words come last. I am drowning in my own despair. I know I need help, but don't know if I will get the right help, or if the help will fix my despair, depression.
I pace my floor at night consumed with thoughts of feeling alone, ugly, worthless, useless and concluding that I should leave this world. What's the point of going on? I'm not sure if this stems from loosing love I thought would last forever, in addition to just being depressed anyway, but it hurts. It's affecting my work, it's affecting my life, my future. There are too many people who love me for me to be so selfish as to leave them all, but that doesn't stop me from thinking about it. I want to take the pain I feel inside and make it physical. I want to hurt as much in my skin and muscles as I do in my heart and soul.
So I go to work because I know it will distract me from my pain, but it doesn't cure what hurts. Which makes me wonder, what does hurt? And why? Where do I get the idea that I am ugly, horrible monster of a person to the point of not valuing my own talents? To the point of considering wasting my talent in forcing my own death. Death comes for us all, it's what you do with your precious life in the meantime that makes legends or fables or changes in the great wide world. I am just silly enough sometimes to want to make my death come sooner so the world will no longer be troubled with trying to keep me here.
I am sad to loose love I thought would last forever. It weakens my faith and hope in the future. In the fact that there is someone, made especially for me to spend the rest of my life with. I am shattered in this resolute faith of the hope of love. I want to drink until I pass out just so I sleep through the night. I want to beat my body until the bruises show, purple and black, badges of my heart's pain. I want to cry until I can't cry anymore so I purge all the pain from my soul. I want to be happy again and dance in the sunlight. I think I know how to accomplish this, but it's going to take time and patience and hope. Trust in the future, in the promise that the future will be different and that difference will be better. Please, God, let it be so.