Your Favorite Color

 Sometimes I feel like I'm collecting facts 

All about you

Remembering all the details

And reciting them by heart

How you love rainbows

Laying on the trampoline, eating popsicles

Yodeling about macaroni as a light bulb explodes

Naked, running down the road in the middle of the night

No one else knowing how to break into our bubble.

Shows that make you laugh

Habit-forming amounts of your favorite kinds of food

I can never know enough

Even when we talk all day,

Laughter filling every second

Days of visiting filled with a thousand

Special moments that will never be forgotten.

Beneath the joy, there is so much love

Even when the laughter feels faraway

Anything worthy of sharing, I want to share with you first

Marriage proposals, pregnancy announcements

Sad moments and the happiest news

Prayers for better times, I know I can count on you

Rarely do I ever hold secrets from you

You are my person, my besty, my buddy, my dearest friend.

Over mountains and oceans, my heart stays with you:

Resolved to fix the distance someday. 

Dear A

 Hey friend. I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately, I’m not really sure why. Maybe you’re always a little bit on my mind, even if I try to think about other things. 

I wanna talk about the hard stuff. The stuff we couldn’t put into words when we were 6 years old. Or 10 and 16 years old. The stuff we didn’t really understand. You were my best friend. And I had my issues, my weirdness. My traumas. But you… I think you were going through so much worse and I didn’t know. I still don’t really know. I just want to ask you… were you safe? 

I wasn’t safe that one night alone in the den on the pull-out sofa. I don’t know how I knew I wasn’t safe. I don’t know what made me flip over and try to protect myself. But he came in anyway and did what he did. And I think about that a lot. Because the second I told my safe people, a wall of protection came around me and I never had a sleepover with anyone ever again. I was protected. 

What about you? Did it happen to you? Did you ever have peace? He was supposed to be your protector. And he was a monster. Did anyone ever listen to you? Were your siblings safe? Did you grow up and move away and cut off all contact, or is he still there, fluttering around the edges of your life, reminding you that he is undefeated?  

There were rumors of why you moved, but I never knew them until I was an adult. The day I told you what happened, we were both so young. I shouldn’t have said anything to you when I didn’t fully understand it. You went so catatonic, just sitting on the swing in my orchard, staring forward. I didn’t understand that. I thought you were being goofy. I thought you didn’t believe me. I did anything I could to try to “cheer you up”, and I honestly… don’t remember what happened after that.

When I saw you at your cousin’s wedding, he wasn’t there and I felt like we had one of the best weekends of our friendship. When we went to a Celtic Festival. It was the first time I had seen him since that night. He grabbed my sides and roared to give me a jump scare. And I didn’t know what to do, but you pulled me away and while we hustled far away from his sneering chuckle, you whispered, “I hate (him).” With so much anger, I suddenly realized… what if I’m not the only one? What if you lived in that scared moment every night of your life? What if there was no one to slam down a wall of safety? 

A, I think about it. And if it didn’t happen to you… I’m sorry it happened to your friends. I’m sorry you couldn’t trust him. I’m sorry he made you lose people. Like you slowly lost me. I think about you so often. When we reconnected on social media and chatted a bit, you said that your parents were still married. That your family was all in the same general area. And it hurt my heart. It made me so angry. Nothing ever happened to him? He just stayed married to your gentle, happy, crunchy mom… who danced like a fairy and laughed with her head back and her curls bouncing.

I just want to know what happened. I wanna know if you’re okay. I wanna know if you’re hurting. I wanna know if I can help at all. I couldn’t help you then. Maybe I still can’t. But if you ever need to talk about it… from someone who might have seen a small part of what your secrets were… I am here. 

Love always,

Me. 

Political Politics

 I have no political insights. I have no depth of understanding. I personally believe if you can get to the point where you could actually be elected president, you're too corrupt to run the country. But walking away from this election... it's been such a bizarre experience. That a felon could be elected over a female human. That the largest voter turnout in years yielded a cheeto-colored racist misogynist freudster with a history of sexual assault and a bathroom full of classified documents... won. And people are celebrating by turning on minorities in their communities, gleefully boasting about getting to have more say over what happens over a woman's body than she does, and comparing the dumpster-fire of a president-elect to King David in the bible. 

    I'm not saying that his opponent was the cream of the crop or that I was excited about her and all her policies... But she was the lesser of two evils. She was something new. She was a beacon of hope towards a progressive future... the first Woman President. I don't understand how that didn't win over toxic masculinity in a puffy-hateful baboon of a human. 

    I was listening to someone talk about what happened with the far-right was the ruling majority in all branches of government in Poland. It wasn't a pretty story for them. I don't know that that is what is going to happen in America... I'm just saying I can see why people are scared. 

Catching the Blue

 The thing about depression is it's hard to know you're really depressed. Especially if you're like me and you go from totally fine to wanting to die in 24 hours notice. I don't know that its actually a desire to die though. It's a desire for something else. But having absolutely no energy for anything. I can smile and even laugh, I can enjoy myself... and still feel totally separate from those emotions. Its just a thing that is happening, it's not actually changing the depression. I want to explain it to someone, but I don't know how to say it. It's not something that feels explainable. I hate everyone and everything, but also desperately want to connect, but have no desire to do anything to connect with people who love me and probably want to help me.     

My husband feels a thousand miles away. He can walk in and ask me how I'm doing and I can say one of a thousand answers, none of which would actually make him understand me or give me the connection I want from him. Sometimes it feels like I'm trapped in a dream world where I'm screaming at the top of my lungs and everyone around me is just staring like nothing's happening. Or they start laughing. I'm panic-in carnet and they are all just giggling like I'm being funny.    

I have nightmares that he's cheating on me constantly. Maybe its because we don't really have anything in common. He's one sexy secretary away from realizing I'm a lazy fat piece of shit with too many insecurities to love anyone because I'm too wrapped up in my own problems. He's not a stud by any stretch of the imagination, but I love him and am insanely attracted to him and I can easily imagine any other woman being attracted to him too. It's all in my head though. But then... everything is. Love is in my head. Emotions. Personality. Depression. Isn't it all just in my head? What changes something from being "just in your head" into being real? Something other people can also experience I suppose.

  But how do you make someone else experience your depression so they take you seriously? I don't feel taken seriously. I don't really feel anything some days. Maybe I need to up my Zoloft. I feel like a shell. I constantly want to disassociate. Why does my depression need someone else to validate it? What would make it valid? If I killed myself? I don't want to do that. I don't actually want to die. I just want to feel like I'm alive. And it hasn't felt like that in a few days. 

I wonder how often people are supposed to feel this down. Blue days. Its like a cold sometimes. I just catch a blue. This Blue is particularly nasty. I still managed to take care of the kids, cook three meals. Clean the kitchen. Do laundry. Wash all the dishes. And get dressed this morning. I suppose if I didn't manage, then someone might take me more seriously. But it feels like the depression makes me mask extra hard when it's this numbing. If I can do, then I will survive. But why would I want to continue to survive to feel... nothing? 

I don't think you're supposed to seek seratonin boosts from your husband. I mean, you're definitely supposed to feel supported and loved and feel good around your husband, why else would anyone seek companionship? But I don't think you're supposed to chase after it like a drug. Or not feel anything unless he's around. Or get angry when he doesn't automatically understand how to fill you up. I want him to fill me up. Feel me up. Do all the husband/boyfriend/lover things that give you tingles to your toes and make you feel like a person who is worthy of attention. Lusted after. I don't know that he knows how to do that. I don't think he wants to lust after ANYONE real. Its sinful. 

I don't feel a desire to pray about it. The farthest I get is "Dear Heavenly Father" but it bounces around my clogged brain and goes nowhere. I don't know that I believe in any of it anymore. It was comforting once. Now its just a lot of platitudes and childhood cult doctrines. I don't know how to make it feel real again. I don't think God forgives you for turning on your whole religion, no matter what heading it falls under. 

My head feels thick. It's hard to keep it upright. I just want to lie down all the time. Gravity is working extra hard today and I'm living in my bedroom again. I just want to be engaged with life, but life seems too exhausting. I wonder who's out living right now? I'd love to hear a happy story. I bet people had healthy babies today. Something probably got married. Someone is celebrating a birthday, a promotion, a win that makes their day. Someone just met the love of their life. Someone is confiding in their best friend and feeling heard and supported for the first time. Its all happening outside in the world at this exact moment. Will I ever feel those zings ever again? I've never really been a happy cryer. Will that ever happen to me? Maybe when my kids get married. Or I meet my grandbabies. Maybe I will live long enough to see everyone I love happy and settled somewhere. 

Its okay to feel blue. It's okay to be depressed. This will no last. But I'm going to lie back down until I feel like I can survive upright again.