Winter in my heart

I am living in fog. It's not the weather. It's the condition inside my head. Everything seems vague, obscured and distanced. Sad and more than a little lonely, I'm tired of propping myself up with all of my usual tools. 30 years ago, feeling this way, I would have taken to my bed and cried and until I was high from expressed emotion. 20 years ago, I would have poured quite a few drinks and released this to the stupidity and faked joviality of intoxication. 10 years, I would have gritted my teeth and upped the hours I put in on the job. Now, I just want to give into it and stare. Letting hopelessness suck me under again is beginning to feel comforting, a hell too familiar and too inevitable to hate enough to fight.

My mood stands in sharp contrast to the season around me. Lights may be twinkling, but I see gray. Everyone seems to be moving at high speed and with purpose, and I feel like I'm moving through sludge, just plodding through my days because sitting still would bring down the displeasure of those around me. I feel powerless to create change, and I'm tired of faking that I can.

I'm a bit disgusted with myself for writing this and even more for feeling this way. A tiny voice is murmuring, "Have you no shame, spilling this garbage publicly? You know the things you should be doing. Here's the list. Now get off your butt and do it. Take small steps. See the little accomplishments and give yourself credit for them. Use that brain you've been so proud of to look for solutions. If you do give in, you are the big, fat failure you're afraid you are."

Negative reinforcement has never worked well for me, and that seems to be all that I can access. The problems seem insurmountable. When I think I've resolved one, I find that it's simply morphed into another form, but the root problem is the same. I don't have the energy to fight. I'm beyond the panic which can generate energy. Some fear and some pain linger, but they are fading to numbness. When they first started to fade, I mistook this for a calm that would include vision clear enough to see a course of action. Dead calm is different. There is nothing that can be done but wait for the looming disaster to strike. Anything else is just for show.

I have one hope. I have found interim insurance that will begin in two weeks. Prescriptions will be covered, and I can resume taking anti-depressants. Part of me laughs at the hope I'm putting into a little pill, but experience tells me this has worked before and should work again. Two weeks. I know how fast that can pass. I know that certain problems I'm facing may take years to resolve. That much time adds to the hopelessness I'm feeling. Two weeks in comparison is short. A voice of sanity is telling me that it's manageable if not easy. Two weeks, and then maybe, just maybe, I can start believing in my ability to fight and solve problems, to win and to live with feeling, courage and possibly even zest again.

Sometimes, eternity can be measured in days.