DEPRESSED AM I

 

I know I’m a great proponent of being optimistic and believe it’s up to me to CHOOSE how I feel each day. I also don’t believe I “should” do anything, but that I will or won’t, can or cannot. I also know that while I try ever so hard to keep to those beliefs, there are days where depression hovers over and descends like a huge fluffy cloud to make it impossible to CHOOSE what I SHOULD choose for myself. Yes, today I am horribly depressed, but perhaps writing about it will help me become strong enough to CHOOSE to blow this huge and ugly cloud away.

You traveled the week with me and my tooth difficulties, and yesterday I felt so much better. I also knew that taking Percocet for the four days I did could cause me to become depressed because that is one of the side-affects. What I didn’t take into consideration is the fact this is December and Christmas, one of the supposedly happiest days of the year is just 20 days away.

A friend pointed out last night something I already knew I was going to have to implement…a two-week quarantine where I see absolutely no one because I spent at least six hours in a potentially COVID transmission area on Wednesday. So, except for a trip to the grocery store, gloved and masked, I will be here alone for the next two weeks or more.

Add to that the fact there will be no Christmas decorations in or on my house this year. The huge boxes the kids usually pull down from the attic will remain there. I will not host Christmas Eve dinner and watch my grandkids open their gifts with all the excitement and joy that entails. I will get up Christmas morning knowing I will remain at home all day, that the annual Christmas brunch at AJ’s and Angie’s will not happen. I will be alone and very lonely.

There won’t even be the pleasure of buying and wrapping gifts. Instead, I will purchase Visa gift cards for each member of my family, place them in Christmas cards and deliver to their homes with no contact on Christmas Eve day. No hugs or kisses or delight in hearing what they plan to do with their gift card. I probably won’t even hear what they used the gift cards to purchase…a totally without any pleasure for me gift from me to them.

Tears are leaking down my cheeks as I type this up. Perhaps a good hard cry will make me feel better. I don’t know. All I do know right now if that life doesn’t look so wonderful or special or good or even worth having to a degree. Life right now just seems hard and lonely and depressed. COVID (and Percocet) have pulled any joy, current or potential right out of my life.

I’m telling myself this is only temporary, that my life will get better, but today there is a huge part of me that’s responding with, “Who the fuck do you think you’re kidding? You’re alone and lonely. Life sucks and there’s really no point in doing anything whatsoever because nothing actually matters.” Today, I don’t have a response for that other part of me besides, “I know.” I cannot even tell myself with any depth of belief that, “It will get better. Just give it some time.” Yes, today life as I know it really does suck, but there is a teeny-tiny part of me somewhere deep down that is raising a very small flag of hope. I’m going to picture that teeny-tiny flag getting larger and larger even though at the moment it is miniscule.  I’m sure (sorta) tomorrow will be a better day.