Hope the Dreams Make Up for the Reality

I have 6 post-it notes on my computer keyboard at the moment. Some are college-related…financial aid stuff the boychild and I need to do as soon as I can figure out my taxes for this year. One is a list of blog and Facebook posts I need to do for an art group I’m in. Another couple are related to college funds and having to move money around. And there’s one that’s a prioritized list of all the quilt-related stuff I have to do in the next week or so. My phone is regularly buzzing me to let me know where I need to be next or what I need to do on the way home or to school. I’m organized as hell, and yet, wow…I’m not. But I am. I’ve got my brain hemmed in by all these reminders to get it all done…I’m not letting it slack. I am a really highly functioning depressoid. It’s almost MORE depressing to be that highly functioning. LOOK! You CAN get it all done and on time and finished and You Still Feel Like Shit because none of it really matters deep down. I might be happier if I climbed into bed and didn’t come out.

So there we are. How do I make some of it matter again? I don’t fucking know. I go to counseling and ask her, and she doesn’t just pull out a list and hand it to me, dammit. I need a list…go through steps 1-5 and you will see that things matter again. Step 6 is optional, but will make things matter AND help you save the world, one kitten at a time. Or! Just slog through each hour, each day, and hope that you will see some light at the end of a tunnel some day in the future. Hopefully before you die. Yup. It’s the cheery hour here.

I got an email today asking me if one of my quilts could be used in a book…wow. Cool. But I’m also waiting on a rejection notice. Neither of those things really matters.They will happen and they will not make me happy or not happy.

I quilted for almost two hours tonight…

I think I’m up to 11 or 12 hours on this thing…and I’m not done. I’ve gone almost all the way around once, and still need to go around a second time. I wanted to finish tonight, but it didn’t happen. I also didn’t get binding today, because I opted for the gym instead. Good choice. I’m still losing weight, but it’s slowed down a lot…that’s good. I don’t want it to be a superfast thing. I want it to stay off. The first 20 pounds came off really slowly, and though it was frustrating, I still think it was much healthier than the next 25 pounds. Depression is a bitch with weight…you can’t control how it messes with your ability to eat. I can eat now…I had a 3-month time period when eating was seriously problematic. I’m better now. I’d rather be eating healthily and losing slowly than the kamikaze weight loss I was doing before. I get irritated at the people who want to know HOW I did it. I don’t think you really want to know. I just stopped eating. When I ate, I couldn’t keep it down. Vomit happened. Gaacking. Did you really want to know about that? Most of the time, I couldn’t eat. Not good. Better now.

I still haven’t solved the sleep issues though. I was never a good sleeper, and now I am an incredibly shitty sleeper. It’s not good for me, but I can’t seem to beat it. Some part of me just wants to stay up all night and finish the quilting. That’s the artist brain talking. The mom/teacher brain (the responsible part) has to talk the artist brain out of crazy shit like that. But I think I will finish quilting tomorrow, so I’m actually going to go get binding fabric before I go to the girlchild’s game…I think I have time. This is my life…it is scheduled so tight that crazy things happen like I’m cooking tonight’s dinner AND tomorrow night’s dinner at the same time, and when I finish the dishes for tonight’s dinner, I’m putting tomorrow night’s dinner into the casserole dish and into the fridge. I think that’s impressive, on one hand, but supremely sad and depressing on the other. I’m SuperWoman AND SuperDepressoid. This weekend will be like that too…getting the quilts done, plus art meetings, plus grades. There’s no down time, no time for a hike, I think…I will make it to the gym, but finding 3-5 hours for a hike doesn’t seem realistic. Too bad…something about being outside seems to help. Go outside. Exercise. Read. Talk to people. I don’t like that last part. I just cry, even now, so it’s hard to just talk about everything that’s in my head. It’s not kosher to cry all the time…to just plain old lose it.

I’m still a fucking mess. When does that stop? When do I get to be a human again? Why do I have to be like this? Why can’t I just get angry and move on?

When I’m not quilting, I pile everything up on the machine…

It keeps cats and dogs off of it…I am seriously so close to done that it is painful NOT to just sit here and finish it (it would probably be another 2 hours though). I’m a little obsessive. Will I feel relieved when it’s done? Yes. It’s due soon. I need it to be done. Will I feel happy it’s done? Wow. What does that word mean again? Maybe just successful. And even then, it’s hard to feel successful about just one tiny piece of your life…that downer part of my brain starts listing all the things I’m not successful about, and it turns into a downer fest. Not good. It’s better to just take some quiet breaths and think, OK, I did that. Moving on. Do something else. Don’t get the downer brain engaged in this…it won’t turn out well. Don’t even tell it that it should be impressed…just go on to the next thing. I don’t have anyone to celebrate with. It’s empty success.

When the kids leave for college, I think I will just fill the house with dogs. Jake has been singing to me when I get home, half-howling and body-slamming me with needy German-Shepherdness.

And then Calli feeds off of that and whines and brings me a toy. Well, earlier, one of them stole a toilet paper roll…the whole thing…not just the cardboard. So that was fun. Jake will only be here through Saturday. He’s not thrilled about being here, because we tell him the food on the table is for people, not dogs, and he thinks we are crazy for saying that. Plus I won’t let him help me cook. Or eat cats. Or sleep on my bed WHILE eating cats. He does not understand when I explain appropriate dog behavior.

Calli just wants to sit in my lap. Like all the time.

She’s not a small dog. She’s a Golden Retriever. My lap is not big enough for a Golden Retriever. Petting dogs is good therapy. Cats too. They seem to absorb some of the depressed stuff. I don’t understand people who don’t have pets, especially the ones that keep saying they want one and don’t get one. Stop saying it and just do it. There is no perfect animal or perfect set up in your home. Just go to the damn shelter and get a dog or cat and give them love and food and take care of them and pet them, and have them stare into your face and bat at you when you walk by (Babygirl) and squawk a little and need you and ignore you and pee and puke all over the carpet. Because if you can’t deal with all those things, then you aren’t a decent human being. If you overthink the process so much that you can’t even ADOPT? Then how human are you? If you just keep putting it off until the situation is perfect, then you will never have that unconditional love, that furry, bad-breathed love, that cold-nose-up-your-butt love. People with pets have empathy. I’m a big fan of empathy at the moment…of being able to engage with other people’s feelings and feel for them. I don’t deal with other people’s empathy well, but I still think it’s a better place to be than in asshole mode, where it’s all your world and no one else’s.

I have too much empathy. It hurts.

Yes, my brain is in wander mode. And in pissy mode. And in overwhelmed mode. I’ve been overwhelmed for so many years that I don’t know how NOT to be. I dream of a happy place where I get all excited about what I’m almost finishing, and I wake up and hug a pet and make a nice lunch and the world is bright and full of cinnamon and sugar.

Yeah, I know. I should just go to bed and hope the dreams make up for the reality. The plus is I’m raking in the hugs at school…all the kids came back in needy-hug mode. I’m down with that…averaging 15 or so a day. Can’t complain. OK, dreams. Take me away. Make it all OK.