Yesterday was pretty rough.
The worst part about emotional crap is that you can’t just get it over with. It just clings. I tear up at the drop of a hat. (Major PMS doesn’t help, mind you.) This is annoying and increasingly inconvenient, since I have errands to run and whatnot.
After awhile, you start to feel about your emotions like you do about your allergies–“Oh, lord, here we go again. Great. Oh, sweet jesus, this sucks. Argh, my sinuses! Arggh, my itchy swollen eyelids. Oh, man, do I need a Kleenex….” Come to think of it, that’s not a bad analogy–most of the time it’s a low level snorfle, but every now and then you have a serious attack and you’re laid up on the couch half the day, snivelling, and would just as soon not see another human being until the worst of it has passed.
Pity the equivalent of emotional Benadryl isn’t available over the counter.
James is suggesting I see a therapist, which probably isn’t a bad idea, but at the same time–it’s plain ‘ol grief with an extra helping of stress. People go through it. It’s pretty normal–if anything, it’d be weird if I wasn’t going through it. You don’t drop-kick thirteen years with somebody overnight. I don’t think I’m really depressed, per se–miserable, sure, absolutely, but not depressed. I’m still making art and getting out of bed. I can still appreciate that, for example, the house finches have discovered my birdfeeder and the female is munching on seeds while the red-headed male eyes me warily through the glass. I don’t have the kind of all-over brain-chemistry malaise I’d associate with depression. I’m just gonna be fairly well wrecked for a bit, until the emotional ragweed has finished blooming.
In a lot of ways, it’d be easier if I knew what to expect. If I knew we weren’t getting back together, I could deal. It might be a somewhat dramatic dealing–“Screw it, I’m movin’ back to Arizona!” “I wonder if I’d make a good nun…” “Maybe I WILL check out that Quaker commune in Alaska Ellen told me about!” “Time for a full shoulder sleeve tattoo of Celtic knotwork wombats!” but I’d cope. The women of my family are champion copers. We have mad l33t c0p1ng skillz. And if I knew we were getting back together…well, this’d be a minor rough patch in the road. But uncertainty is the great killer.
I dunno.
Today we start couples therapy. I have no idea what to expect from that at all, but here’s hoping.
