Breaking up is hard to do...

We had a seven month relationship, short by most standards. It was a blind date, set up by Mara, but she said that even though he wasn't really a people person I would find that he was just perfect for me. When we had our first date I was a little alarmed at how old he was, I usually prefer someone a little younger and more in touch with the current times, but supposedly he was brilliant and the best guy for me, and I was hopeful that we could somehow find a happy ending together. He validated me, and certainly listened to all my problems, asked a lot of questions and really listened to the answers, I really thought things would work out well with us despite his personality. Then he dumped me, out of the blue. He didn't even do it himself, he had his secretary call me and say that things were over between us and we wouldn't be seeing each other any more. He was my Endocrinologist, and I had such faith in him. Being dumped by him was one of the most devastating break-ups of my entire life.


 After treating me for Graves' Disease for all that time he suddenly said my thyroid levels were "normal" and therefore I was fine now. Except I still feel exactly the way I did when I first sought medical help in January, and the headache that was one of the first symptoms that brought me there has become constant and unrelenting. My left eye is still noticeably larger than my right, which he called "Graves' Eye Disease" the first time we met. I don't know how large the range called "normal" is, but I don't feel good at the spot on the line where I landed. It may be "normal" but it isn't right for me. I am feeling so sorry for myself and bereft of hope, because now I feel just as bad as ever but there's no one who is looking for the cause or the cure now. If I have to feel like this for the rest of my life I will dramatically declare that "I can't go on like this." 




I don't feel suicidal, I don't want to miss the rest of my life because of an early death, but I really do feel like I can't go on like this. It's a contradiction of depression that has me feeling paralyzed and frozen with grief. I'm on a shit-ton of medication, all to treat the symptoms but not address the base problem with my health, which I still believe resides in the glowing butterfly of chaos- my thyroid. It's the eye, that's my best clue.

Depression is a funny thing, like plastic nose glasses with skewed lenses. I know so many things intellectually, but when I look through this particular set of eyes life looks bleak and I feel like what I'm seeing is reality. Now when I'm dealing with a slightly warped funhouse mirror that makes me look really thin I'm completely content to accept that distortion of reality, but the nose glasses make it hard to live my daily life. I start believing that it's just like this for me and I become increasingly doom and dire. If I didn't have Michael to love and support me I would be thinking of jumping off a bridge. Bungee jumping probably, because I really don't want to be dead, but I feel like I need a really dramatic statement about how terrible this is and how hopeless I feel. 

Molly has picked this time to leave here and live with her dad full time, she's being 16 and it's more fun over there. This is probably really good for her, but it triggers every abandonment issue I've ever stored in my awareness. I feel dumped by her as well, and being one of the most important people to me ever it just adds the mustache to the nose glasses to complete the costume. I'm alternately sad and mad, and have cried more over her self-centeredness than many issues that you would think were far more damaging. Like when Dottie married one of my two best friends and then he shot himself in the head five years later. I call him Dead Danny and I've cried far more over Molly than him, even though he's become one with the sea and she is just across town. Oh, and I have no Endocrinologist. That thought is like a black bird with tattered feathers and fire for eyes that circles my head and teases my hair with it's carrion claws. I'm in bad shape at the moment. On a side note, I just love my Kindle! As I was writing this an author came on Good Morning America to promote her book "Mean Mothers and Hurt Daughters." I already have it in my book and can start reading it immediately if I choose. Reading it will not be nearly as profitable as writing it, which I could have done. Oh well.


At the same time I'm fully engaged in every form of art I've ever known, and even learning to sew which is a totally new one for me. Creatively I'm overflowing and making so many beautiful things, and I'm loving my chosen career like a drowning woman loves a lifeboat. The creation of beauty is my meditation and my salvation. I make some really cool shit. I'm sewing the dress for my remarriage to Michael in two weeks, and at the same time I'm feeling all the previous things I've written I am excited and looking forward to two days away with my husband celebrating the one good thing I can count on come hell or high water. Michael and my Big Daddy. That's two things that never falter, this could be the beginning of a gratitude list, but I'm wearing my nose glasses at the moment and I'm having a pity party and I don't feel like feeling better. I want to wallow. How do I even stand myself?

Today is the twenty-sixth anniversary of my marriage to my boys' father. That's a long time, how can that be when inside this older, wrinkling body I'm really only twenty-seven? I'm old and I'm ill and I'll be stuck feeling like this forever. Run that like a CD on repeat and you'll have a look at just one room in my mind, the one where I've been hanging out lately. You do not want to visit me in that room. Come and see me at work or when I'm making art, you'll get a whole different person. Twenty-six years, or is it twenty-seven? Did we get married in '82 or '83? If it's that long ago and we've been divorced for over twice as long as we were married how is it that we can't be friends? He's a really cool guy, not the right husband for me but I still wonder why we're not friends. Bleh.

So that is my self-indulgent rant about how I feel today. My eyelid is twitching and I need a shower. I think I'm falling apart, and should probably buy my shopping cart now so I'll have a really nice one to push my belongings around in when the economy finally reduces us to that. I want hand brakes and a solar panel so I can still plug in my computer and blog from the road. I am ridiculous.


At least he didn't say "It's not you, it's me."