Did you notice I was gone? It’s okay if you didn’t – I barely did.
It’s a tricky thing, the first real mood switch of the year. I can find myself both intrigued and excited to start new big projects and have amazing, inventive plans. But the miasma that is a switch is akin to that stuff you find your hair coated in when you clean your drains.
Slippery slope, this mania, when it’s juxtaposing with flatness.
Here’s what I can report:
Every single morning of the past two weeks, I’ve woken, feeling like I’ve failed by the time both eyes have opened. As soon as I’m conscious, it’s like a weight is pressing on me. My heart is getting schmushed by the sheer density upon my sternum. This mass is one with an internal voice that only I can hear, “you still have to…” “you’re behind on….” “soon, she’s going to email, wondering when you’ll be done with…”
It’s exhausting, thinking of all of the things I should be doing. And then still not doing them.
This is why I’ve been so MIA from your blogs, from instant messaging.
And this is a main reason why I haven’t ponied up some testicles to go looking for work outside the home. Imagine waking up to that every single day and having to sit through 8 hours straight of it, every day of the year (less weekends and holidays)? I couldn’t handle it – at least working from home affords me a safe haven for laze. Being forced to work through an inability to construe meanings in sentences, sometimes? Harsh. Frankly, impossible.
Going off to a job – quitting these writing gigs and being a semi-normal adult – would mean feeling that. I know. I used to be one. Prior to maternity leave, I was billing 70 hours a week, still feeling as if it wasn’t enough. I was a dejected, resentful, micro-managing workaholic. I was also fairly heavily medicated and extremely unhappy with my life.
Never again.
And me being me? The option of live/outside work/family balance seems like a task not worth undertaking, since I would ultimately fuck up at least 2 out of the 3.
Instead of that, I only get to the unending feeling a few times a year while my mood is shifting and I get to experience a few, super-short rapid cycles after a down period.
Before the good shit kicks in, that is. Hypo-mania. It’s like Ritalin. For kids who don’t need Ritalin. It’s equal parts anti-depressant, diet, libido enhancer, funny pill. Also, it’s a consumeristic bitch, but what can you do?
This is one of those times. And with it {the beginning of it, that is} comes the usual disappointment in myself and my inactions. Apparently, this time also comes with an empty bottle of wine. But I can nearly guarantee that by the weekend after next?
It’ll be a whole new bag, baby.
