Q-Tip
I thought I was feeling good but was "good" just comfortable? Was "good" just an excuse for not saying I am actually rotting inside. When my coworkers would ask me, "how's it going?", I'd reply with "Good, and you?" or "Oh, it's going." and keep walking. But where is it going? What is going? Is going like good and I'm just going through the motions of a day. Is good just what you say when you wake up everyday above ground even though you feel like your going deeper and deeper down into a world of self pity and dread. Is simply just being alive "good" and "going" because the alternative is still not known.
It 6:54 in the morning. Today I am working my second job as a vendor for Pepperidge Farm in the morning and heading to my job at Home Depot for a closing shift I have been covering as a coworker is out with a medical condition. But he's good right? Because he's living. I don't know.
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I started this piece weeks ago. As one might suspect I haven't been posting or writing due to this mental state. This week I spent three days doing nothing but wallowing in self pity and sleeping. These days were not consecutive, warranted, or wanted. In the past months, actually, over a year, I have not just been in isolation and distancing to avoid being a Covid Cautionary Tale, but because while I was spending arms lengths away from people in stores and in lines, I was lightyears away from myself and my smile.
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This piece has been written and deleted as many times, as a few more weeks have passed since informing you that "this piece was written weeks ago". It has been written as many times as I have thought about upping my medication - too many. As many times as I have thought about returning to therapy, but haven't - again, too many times. Most who read this know my story, my health, some cravesses of my mind. Very few know that as I'm writing this I am not even looking at the screen, because I feel detached from the mind I occupy now; a depressed one. My bed-ins this week were due to my body falling victim of three autoimmune diseases (for those who are unaware of what that means, an autoimmune disease is caused by your body attacking itself in various forms. I'm a victim of joint swelling, cortisol increases, food allergies, poor blood circulation, and migraine that split my head as well as my personality). They don't help depression, especially when they make me feel like a burden. For not being able to eat normally - I went mini golfing with some coworkers and my boyfriend, they all got ice-cream afterwards while I chewed gum. Especially times when I can't always work - I was helping with my second job this week, a vendor for Pepperidge Farms where I help take product off the truck and into aisle of grocery stores - Standing in the refrigerator section was enough to make the blood constrict in my fingers and turn white hot. I say white hot, because the feeling is numb to an almost boiling point, and my appendages turn white. Some days my joints swell too much I can't lift my arms - like today. Some days my face gets so puffy leaving me unrecognizable to myself. Somedays, most this year, I have had a depression that's left me feeling like a drop of Dawn Dish Soap. We once did a project in Ms. DiCenzo's class, seventh grade, where we filled a plate with milk, put four different food coloring dots onto the surface of the milk, then dip a Q-tip into some Dawn dish soap. The Q-Tip then touches the surface of the milk creating a chemical reaction in which the colors push away from the soap. They blend and mix into each other on the outside rim of the plate, leaving the Q-Tip incased in a white, isolated space. I feel like that sudsy Q-tip. The rest of the world is swirling, meeting, blending together, I am left alone. Alone with a mind of nothing but a white space. But perhaps, I am the one pushing people away from me and towards others? I am the Q-Tip withe a side dipped in an undesired characteristic. What I am learning now, is that a Q-Tip has two sides. If I wanted people to be attracted to me, if I don't want to push them away, I have to work on fore fronting the side of me that is clean. The side that is not battered in toxicity.
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I suffer from feeling like my emotions aren't valid. That my load is my load, and I must carry it alone. I want to carry it alone.
I want to be free but when given freedom I resort back to a "comfort" state; Depression and low self-esteem.
Sometimes it's hard just being part of the human race. It's an odd thing to be a victim of humanity. We have developed and evolved beyond my comprehension and we will evolve again. Sometimes I feel like leaving it. I know I never will on my own terms. I don't have the courage to - or maybe, that's exactly what I have. Courage. The courage to continue to run this race even though my ankles are blistered and shoes worn out. It takes courage to stay here. It takes love to make it worth sticking around. I've learned that recently. It takes a lot to laugh. Other times we shield our tears and sorrows behind laughs.
It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry. That's a Bob Dylan song about what can be hinted at as sexual frustration. However, analyze it over to fit other situation;
Well, if I die on top of the hill
And if I don't make it, you know my baby will
