Better late than never, I guess.

I told Matt, last night, that I wanted to go out today to sit in a coffee house and write. Before he went to bed last night, I said, "Don't let me go back on this." I have spent the entire day trying to make excuses not to go out. I'm experiencing a depressive episode that is partly because of pain, and partly because of feeling stuck. I'm stuck to the couch, I'm stuck on pain killers, I'm stuck in my thought process, and I'm stuck in terms of creativity. I am reminded of words said to me by one of my most brilliant teachers, way back in fifth grade. She said, "I think you're waiting for something." And twenty-six years later, I am still waiting. For what, I don't know. I have everything I need, now, for the first time in my life.

I have (or at least had) artistic and musical talent. My scientific mind isn't too shabby, either. I have always been gifted with words. Yet, I have never finished a painting, never written a concerto, never published a paper, and never written a book. I want to have done all of these things, but something keeps me from doing them. A lack of self-confidence? An inability to focus? An overabundance of ideas, creating options paralysis that has kept me in place my entire life? Sure, these things are all true, but the biggest problem has been being stuck on the bottom rung of Maslow's Hierarchy for most of my life. Not having a safe place to flourish, not knowing where I was going to sleep, not being sure of who my friends were, and never having had the foundation of a truly supportive family (because they were all sick, like I am, and didn't know it, or didn't want to know.)

But that doesn't let me off the hook. There are plenty of brilliant people who have clawed their way up from adversity and become amazing and inspiring examples. Yes, fine, I know I make a difference to the people I interact with and can offer help to. I know that the people who love me appreciate me for things I can't see when I look in the mirror. But that's all about them. If you had told me, at sixteen years old, that at thirty-six, I would still have no college degree, be in debt up to my eyeballs, and only surviving because of the good fortune of falling in love with someone who can support me, I would have killed myself. I wanted to believe, back then, that somehow I would become something special. That somehow, my hundred-sixty-whatever IQ would see me through to becoming a success. It hasn't. If anything, it's gotten in the way. I have the uncanny ability to justify everything I do and don't do, to myself and to everyone else. I have essentially conned myself out of doing anything significant with my life.

I don't even know why I'm writing this. It isn't going to change anything. I'm not going to wake up tomorrow and suddenly have the drive and clear-headedness to make up for all the time I've lost. I've almost certainly lived more than half my life, and this should be a motivating factor. Instead, all I want to do is rest. And rest. And rest. I'm no less soul-tired than I was when I started therapy or before I met Matt. It's just that now, I have company, and people who can support me through my depressive times, and love me even though I never lived up to my "bright and gifted" childhood hype. And I don't know how to get rid of that debilitating weariness. I have brief moments of clarity, small bursts of energy that turn into a picture here or a poem there, but nothing sustainable. Nothing significant. I couldn't even manage to draw a picture for my friends' wedding. I don't even want to make a schedule to do things, because then, if I don't have the energy to do those things, I will feel like a failure.

I just want the pain to stop. I want to be an artist and an actor and a singer, a counselor and a research scientist and an activist against injustice, but more than that, I want to have been these things. At thirty-six, I want accomplishments to look back on, and all I can say is... I survived.

Well, this went in a different direction than I wanted it to go. I was going to write about how I finally cried about my cat, and that it made me feel a little better. Somehow, that seems insignificant, now. Such a simple, clear-cut thing, when all of this other cognitive dissonance is so deep, so toxic and so sickening. I'm just glad I never killed anyone, including myself.