Neurotica for a Wednesday morning. Hopefully a better post will emerge later and bury this unexplainable misery far down the page.
Here's a prime example of how my brain has functioned since Cole's attack in May. I sat down to write about how before Jacob left to go to work this morning, he came back upstairs and kissed the back of my thigh and then told me he wished he could stay home one more day. Which, damn, is awesome enough as a whole post by itself but then I came downstairs, poured some coffee and sat down to write after making the kids some breakfast and so much anxiety started pouring out around the edges of me that I went back for my robe and put it on, in hopes that it could somehow absorb the excess.
I'm about to have one of those days.
A mental list of things I can't write about, things I can't deal with and things I don't understand begins to wind itself around my thoughts, choking them off abruptly. A tangled mess woven into my psyche and no matter how long I sit on the floor unraveling and finding ends and trying to make some order of it all it's pointless. No headway at all.
This is why I'm still taking pills. Sporadically, begrudgingly. Soon to launch an all-out campaign to stop with the pharmaceutical therapy, for now I take them and scowl. Because, oh yes, they make the grinding pain of the anxiety bearable. Bearable is much preferred over completely uncontrollable. Notice I didn't say unbearable. As long as everyone including me (!) can control Bridget, if they know how to keep her calm, keep her down, keep her from losing it than the day can go on.
As you were, folks, as you were.
Otherwise I'm sure the men in the white coats are right around the corner with their stretcher with restraints and some needles of euphoria and sleep, ready to pounce. I've been told unequivocally that this is not how it is, but I'm not stupid.
Claus calls me the impatient patient.
Somehow while we were on the coast I held it together, in spite of my juvenile efforts to tear myself apart and sabotage myself it went smoothly. It was easy. Too easy. I was, no, okay, honestly Jacob was warned that it might all blow up in our faces once we arrived, or worse, once we came home. At least he's had some warning. I'm ticking. Like a fucking bomb.
The things I don't want to deal with remain. Those things I can't erase from the story of my life and they're all things I will have to examine in detail at some point. Like when I dropped the box, like the kids starting school which terrifies me to the point that I refuse to think about it. Like when the hell am I going to get better? When will I stop comparing?
When will life go on, because I thought when the box fell from my hands that everything was going to magically be better?
When will I smile without doing a systems check? When will benign greetings like "How are you?" stop being loaded questions, dreaded and anticipated and difficult to answer?
I was so so happy once. Okay, no I was miserable for so long and unhappy in my own skin and wanting everything I couldn't have, and it's become an all-encompassing expedition to finally move past all that and I can't. My life has become quicksand and everyone pulls until I'm halfway out and then they walk away and someone else comes along for a try.
I'm not blaming everyone.
When do I stop craving Jake? He's here, for god's sake. He's RIGHT HERE. I can still taste his kiss on my mouth. A coffee kiss. My bangs are still swept to the side from where he smoothed them away with his fingers when he looked into my eyes and told me he loved me and that he'd be home for lunch.
And the minute he leaves I feel like someone has taken the warmth of his presence and replaced it with jagged shards of pain, a dull ache that never goes away until he comes home. Stabbing pain radiating through the entire structure of my heart. No one gives you instructions for this and they should. So, tell me, is faith carrying me on these days or isn't it?
Some days faith isn't all it's built up to be, some days it just isn't there at all. God takes sick days too and when he does watch the fuck out. Jacob hates it when I talk like this but honestly smiling tightly through my teeth and repeating "I'm fine." doesn't get me anywhere at all. This, writing about it, well, this works somehow. Almost as good as a kiss on the back of the thigh from Jake.
Or maybe it's just that the vacation is now officially over and everything is the same as it was before and I was hoping for better. Or maybe not better, just different. Just not this. I only feel better when he's here. And that's not fair. To me or to him.
