Sometimes
Sometimes I tell people I've been busy, when what I really mean is I've been paralyzed with self-doubt, anxiety, or depression.
Some days are better than others but Mondays are the worst. Mondays are always fresh loss and renewed grief, the comfort of the weekend ripped away. I'm alone in the house; I often feel completely adrift. I feel like my life is just day after day spent waiting for the next crisis, the next bad thing, the next project to blow up or self-righteous asshole to come take a bite out of me. I wait to be tricked, to be duped, to be treated unfairly, for the rug to be pulled out from under me.
Some days my only success is getting to the end of the day having nothing bad happen and feeling I can breathe again for a few hours.
Sometimes I want to write. I want to write about this desperation and anxiety and sadness I feel. Usually I'm afraid to be that honest. (One time a friend's reaction to my writing was to call up and suggest I might want to try lithium and that unsettled me far more than my own state of mind.)
When I write, I want people to feel what I've written; I want to reach them, move them. I dread writing something that only encourages them to offer platitudes or pep talks. If that's what I get back I've completely failed.
Sometimes I wish I was a painter instead of a writer, so I could just slap paint to canvas and let the painting speak for itself.
Some days are better than others but Mondays are the worst. Mondays are always fresh loss and renewed grief, the comfort of the weekend ripped away. I'm alone in the house; I often feel completely adrift. I feel like my life is just day after day spent waiting for the next crisis, the next bad thing, the next project to blow up or self-righteous asshole to come take a bite out of me. I wait to be tricked, to be duped, to be treated unfairly, for the rug to be pulled out from under me.
Some days my only success is getting to the end of the day having nothing bad happen and feeling I can breathe again for a few hours.
Sometimes I want to write. I want to write about this desperation and anxiety and sadness I feel. Usually I'm afraid to be that honest. (One time a friend's reaction to my writing was to call up and suggest I might want to try lithium and that unsettled me far more than my own state of mind.)
When I write, I want people to feel what I've written; I want to reach them, move them. I dread writing something that only encourages them to offer platitudes or pep talks. If that's what I get back I've completely failed.
Sometimes I wish I was a painter instead of a writer, so I could just slap paint to canvas and let the painting speak for itself.
Fates forfend, lady. Stray not to the artiste's side. Arrogant blighters with their overly attractive significant others and their prima donna attitudes. It's us writers that have to work our craft, to carefully study every nuance of our own output to convey what we truly wish to say. The artist's road is one of interpretation - ours is the thorny path of direct conveyance of our truths...
...or our lies.
This was not a pep talk; more like a rant demanding that you stay the course. ;)
I know exactly how you feel. I WAS a bright, successful, Design Engineer until October '03. That's when I got diagnoses with full Bi-Polar/Schizophrenia. Thank You, please drive through. YOU SHOULD WRITE. Writing has become MY Salvation. I don't care if anyone get's it, or not. YOU have to be your own best friend FIRST.
Thanks,
G.Philpot
I used to love Mondays, back when it meant a return to high school/university.
When I got out of school and into the full-time workforce it was a good number of years before I settled into a Monday-Friday schedule, but Mondays and Monday-equivalents were neither something to look forward to or something to dread; they were just there.
But for the last few years, working with the psycho uber-boss, I've gotten to know just a little bit of the Monday-morning dread that some [most?] people feel. (Luckily this week's firing-without-warning was the departmental admin assistant, not me; another Monday survived.)
We're with you in spirit, and in kind, Nicole, if not in degree.
Spike