Something different

This is a different kind of entry tonight.  This is the context surrounding all of those other vague and high level posts that said something cryptic at the end.  I don't have anything cryptic today.  I just have a life story, and I want to tell some of it.  Not in pretty language, and not with a hidden meaning.  I just want it out there.

I have a little bit of trouble whenever I publish my links to facebook because someone might read it.  Why do I write if I'm worried someone would read it?  It's because I finally think I might have something someone wants to read.  My writing isn't any better now that it was any other time; on the contrary, it's significantly worse.  I'm rusty and out of practice.  But I've decided I have things to say, and I want to say them.  So here goes.

I'm in a bad place, and it's not related to the reasons you would all think.  If you look on the surface, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  It's only 7 months into the year, and I've got my own place for the first time ever in my life.  I was promoted, fairly largely, in March.  I'm in a, dare I say, "relationship" with someone wonderful. But it's more than someone wonderful to me now.  He is someone I respect, feel confident with, and adore.  There.  Risk number one.  Mentioned your adoration for the dude you've been seeing for 11 weeks (and hey, he's got the link to this, so if you're reading this, you read it here first.)   How's that for risk, my friends?

The reasons for where I am right now is not about The Breakup.  At least, not so much.  It's about the years of my life that were unclaimed by me.  It's about what side of the bed to sleep on, what to make for dinner, and working nearly FT in college.  What's more, it's about reaching down deep and finding out who I am - when I'm not Band Girlfriend.  Hardest still, it's about realizing all the ways and reasons I was hurt, scared, battled, and wounded for the last 12 years.  It's a daunting task, to figure it out.  Where would I even begin such a journey?

It turns out, I started the journal all by myself - when I branded my skin with crayola colored ink on my neck and my ribs - then eventually my wrist.  And then again, when I enrolled (finally) in graduate school.  I found small pieces of me in long day trips, swim workouts, Mexican restaurants, and ice cream shops with my Unlikely Friend.  

Then it became a little bit more tactical and strategic when I started Therapy.  I've found at least twice as much confusion then I have clarity, but clarity comes in waves.  We've work on short term things like some sleep exercises, some safe places I can go to in my brain, some cataloging of feelings.  That's not enough, though I go every week.  In the long term it's simply not enough anymore.

After months of not being able to sleep, months of downsliding, months of my Unlikely Friend gently nudging me to accept help, I melted down.  In a crumpled heap at the kitchen table, I looked at my Unlikely Friend, and I said "I just don't know what else to do."

Lucky for me, she knew just what I needed, and I followed her advice exactly.  I went to therapy the next morning and I said "Help me.  Please.  Help me."

After a survey about Depression, some tears, a slight argument, and a lot of "well that doesn't count because of xyz" reason, I was diagnosed with Major Depression and Anxiety Disorder.  It impacts my sleep, and focus, my concentration, and my ability, or inability, to effectively handle emotions.  In a nutshell, it cripples me.  My therapist, and my doctor both assure me this is temporary.  I suppose I don't care one way or another; I just need to function as a human being day in and day out.  

It's been 5 weeks and different dosages on Lexapro, and I feel outside of my body.  It's as if I'm watching my interactions from the sidelines.  And I'm slower.  Less energy.  Less quick to respond to the conversation.  More prone to zoning out.  I'm exactly me just like before, without the edge, without that magic something that people always liked about me.  Whatever that thing is, it's exhausting it.  For right now, steady is just about all I can take.

I'm using this as a tool to help me up and over the hump.  I'm so extraordinarily angry at how my life turned out.  I'm in a good place, it seems like, right now.  But I made a lot of decisions that involved TxB, a lot of decisions I didn't want to make.  Worse, I didn't make a lot of other decisions because I thought the wedge between us would get bigger. Little did I know, it was going to get big anyway.

I've made a lot of mistakes in life, my friends.  I take responsibility for the things in my life that I need to own; I'm trying to relieve myself of the responsibility for things I don't own.  After years of     bearing the brunt of everything I felt was wrong in my life, I'm trying to understand that not only can I control some things - I should.  I can be free from all of it.  I can be safe.

So why am I even writing any of this?  Well, for one thing, I'm exactly the same as I ever was, except not.  Deep down, my heart is the same.  My values, my brain, my words.  But I'm also different.  Some of it is drug-induced.  The slowness, the lack of energy.  My Oldest Friend said the other day that I'm something she can't quite explain now.  Not mellow.  Not even.  Just something.  And so I say this here to the world (or whoever reads it anyway) that if you see me, you'll notice.  I notice.  I hate it.  I hate that I notice.  I hate it even more than you will.  I will wish to fake it, and I might succeed for a few hours, but the energy that requires is a huge toll of me, and I can't do it for very long.

And the second reason why I am writing it is to state, here and now, in writing, that all this bullshit nonsense is necessary for me to be The Best That I Can Be.  That's what my therapist tells me every time I see her - and that's what I strive to be.  The Best That I Can Be.

The Best, today, is not the same as it was yesterday, 6 months ago, or a year from now.  It's just The Best today, right now, this hour, or minute.  All of the drama, the heartbreak, the hard work in therapy - I will overcome it, and I will be a freer, independent, compassionate person.  I will be someone I'm proud to be.  I'm becoming her, more and more everyday.

This one isn't pretty or tidy, and there's not a heck of a punchline at the end.  It's just something I've felt compelled to share, so thank you for reading it.

Shakespeare was wrong.

My Oldest Friend and I had dinner Tuesday.  We don't often spend time together just the two of us.  I was significantly othered for a lot of years, and she's been married to a wonderful man for a little over two.  It's hard to steal a few hours to muse about life over a cheese plate and some wine when 45 miles separates us, and things like work, school, or spouses are big parts of our individual lives.  But we manage as best we can.

And, I admit, it's easier for me to stay away from people when I feel like I do right now.  I can tell my Oldest Friend anything there is to tell her, and I feel confident she wouldn't hold it against me.  But I don't.  Because, as I explained to her Tuesday night, then I'd have to name it.  We had a whole discussion about naming, and it got me thinking about this:

What's in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;

It's a pretty famous quotation; Romeo and Juliet is arguably one of the most well-known plays of all time, a stolen story retold with a talent only Shakespeare possessed.  But I think, just this one time, he did Juliet a disservice. The name of something matters.  That not-rose might still smell as sweet, but without a name, what good is it?  How will you reference it to others?  Where do you catalog it? What should you ask for the next time you need it?  

There is power in a name.  It changes things from subconscious thoughts and memories to real depictions and true stories.  That's why sometimes we name things faster than we should; it lends credibility to feelings that exist without experience. Other times, I think we avoid naming things at all, because as I said to my Oldest Friend, things that don't have power are unable to cause us pain. I much prefer to leave things unnamed.  

Incidentally, she agrees, though she takes it a step further. If you name it, she says, you wed yourself to the story that you're telling. You lock it in stone. It become immobile, unchangeable, inflexible. Maybe then, you'll never escape it.

Maybe that's true, but I don't think so. I think it's only when we name stuff, when we become wedded to something, that we can truly understand it's effect on us. It defines an experience that can sometimes change everything. But until that point, you can't ever set it free.

After my conversation with my Oldest Friend, I realized that everything she said really did change everything. I'm not ready to explain all the ways the last 12 years have changed, and maybe I'm not even ready to accept it. I don't know if or when I will be able to do either of those things, but she said the sort of things that caused me to stop breathing for a minute to absorb.

I believe she said what is true, what is reality, what I could never see. And if she hadn't named it, I would never know it.

I think, my friends, that just this one time, Shakespeare was devastatingly wrong. What's in a name? Everything.