Tuesday, January 4, 2011

One week in April.

Update on the vegan thing and the money thing:

The vegan thing seems much easier this time.  Hope it sticks.

I've saved about $35.00 so far, money I would have thrown away on senseless stupid stuff.  $5.00 of that money would have been spent on a loaf of bread I was eyeing, thinking about taking it home to c/s.  Didn't do it.  Felt good about that.

I keep trying to work myself into some level of enthusiasm.  I have so much to be grateful for, so much.  And yet it's so difficult right now to think of anything other than crawling under the covers.  I think it's this season.  I wish I could sleep until spring.

It takes so much energy, sometimes, to interact with people, to appear normal, engaged, something other than completely gray and flat inside and uninterested in saying one word to anyone about anything.  My job requires a lot of interaction with people sometimes, and January and February are the busiest months of the year.  I have to be "on" all day and that's hard in the best of circumstances, but when I am feeling like this, what I appear to others, what others see, clashes violently with the real me.  It's so incredibly difficult and so jarring.  Even my husband doesn't know the real me.  Sometimes he catches a glimpse, and to be honest, I think it scares him.  I know it does.

It's taking insane amounts of energy to appear normal right now.  People leave the room and I shut down immediately, drained beyond measure with the charade of normality, of enthusiasm, of the polite necessities of custom.  Small talk.  So, so, so difficult.   When I am finally alone I deflate like a balloon.  I could sit and stare at the wall for hours, I think.

I am not losing but my normal sense of urgency appears to be a casualty of this thickening of my heart, this clouding of my brain.  I don't feel the urge to binge but I can't seem to buckle down and do the hard work that needs to be done, either.

Every year in April, my husband and I visit a city I love.  I love everything about this city:  its shops, its food, its flowers, its trees, its architecture, its history.  I am always happy there, always.  I have imbued the city with qualities it does not possess, I see it as a magical elixir for everything wrong.  When I am there everything is perfect and beautiful and I am happy.  If I could live there I would be perfect and beautiful and happy.

I cling to the promise of April in this city I love so.  It's all that's keeping me going right now.