Yea, I'm behind. Deal with it.

I would say that the last two weeks have been crazy busy, but if you are on my Facebook, you know I have posted "I'm bored" far too many times to rightfully claim the Busy Lady title.  Instead, I will go with limbo.  I have been in limbo the last couple weeks.  I am caught in this weird oscillation between feeling good and being kinda down, but not really depressed. 

More like I feel alone - alone in this big city and no one to really hang out with on a regular basis.  Yes, I have been meeting people and spending time with them, getting to know them, but it isn't anything regular.  You see, I have this problem.  I am not an outgoing person.  I have a really, really hard time going to someone's house, knocking on the door, uninvited, and saying "HEY!  Wanna hang out?"  I have a hard time calling someone up who I am not really close to and saying "HEY! Wanna go do something?"  That's not who I am.  I fear the rejection.  I fear the person thinking I am too pushy or rude.  I fear the person thinking I am too clingy or needy.  I let what other people think of me matter far too much.  Or rather, I let what I think other people think of me matter too much. 

And that doesn't even start to touch on my speaking issue.  My brain always seems to move far too slow when it counts so 10 minutes later I think "that's what I should have said!"  Or I will plan out this whole conversation, then I knock on the door or get to the restaurant where we are meeting and POOF!  Everything is gone out of my head and I am officially idiot material.  Welcome to my world. 

A friend who I have known for years online, but only met once in person and talked a couple times on the phone asked me, "How can you not make friends?  You are so cute!"  Well, I guess even if I am cute, I don't have the smile or personality that says "Talk to me because I don't know how to start a conversation and keep it going!"  On the internet though, through email, IM, chat, blog, Facebook, and all those other online modes of communication, I freakin rock!  Maybe it is because I can delete something before putting it out there.  You can't really delete words that are already spoken aloud.  Maybe because I have more time to think before responding.  A quick wit is highly valued in spoken conversations and I just get too nervous with newer relationships to think wittily.  Too busy with the "what ifs." 

So yea, if you are a newer friend and you happen to read my blog, there's the deal.  There is my downfall.  So do a new friend a good deed and invite me out, cause I'm too chicken-shit to ask.

Who's idea what this whole "humans being social creatures" thing anyway?  They are so fired.


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Have you see my mask today?

Depression.  Those who have had it understand its pain and frustration.  Those who haven't can only imagine what it must be like.  They wonder what we mean by "pain"?  How can depression be painful?  And really all we can tell them is "It just is." 

It isn't your normal kind of pain like if you burn yourself on the stove or you smash your thumb with a hammer.  No.  This is an internal pain.  Sometimes it is like someone is twisting your insides around, your blood is burning, or you feel like you have to vomit, and other times, it's just a generalized pain that you can't even begin to describe.  To top things off, rarely is there a good reason to be down.  Often it just happens out of the blue.  Heaven forbid you should actually be sick when the depression hits because it makes it spiral down even faster. 

And then we have the public.  Our friends.  Our family.  Our coworkers and clients.  Too often we can't afford to be down and we certainly can't let anyone know.  We develop masks -- masks to hide the pain.  We plaster a smile on our face and pretend everything is okay.  We laugh when we are supposed to and we function as best we can.  We hide in bathrooms when it gets too overwhelming and fake a migraine when we just can't recover anymore and need to hide in our room.  And on the few occasions when we just have to be in public and we don't have the energy or perseverance in us to maintain that mask showing "everything is just fine," someone inevitably asks what's wrong and we simply say we don't feel well.  We have a stomach ache or we ate a bad lunch. 

No one ever bothers to inquire deeper than that.  We don't want them to.  This is why we choose our excuses so carefully.  We have an arsenal full of them.  You will never know them all and we come up with acceptable new ones every day.  All you can hope for is that one day, you will know us well enough that we will trust you not to cause more hurt if we take our mask off in front of you.  And if that day comes, we hope you will be empathetic enough to hold us when we cry.


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I'm all by myself

Today is Wednesday, August 4.  The day my husband leaves me for his first out-of-town work thing for his job.  It is a weird feeling.  Usually it is me that is doing the traveling.  See, for 4 1/2 years, I worked for a university where I traveled 5 times a year.  Granted, they were only overnight trips, but they were still out-of-town.  On top of that, if we aren't traveling together, it is usually me traveling to see my parents or friends.  I usually plan these trips to be too long and end up missing my husband terribly by the end of it.  But since I finally got to join my husband in February after two months apart (a story for another time), we have only been apart twice and that was to help/visit family. 

Now my husband is leaving me for 4 days and I feel pathetic that I already feel lost without him.  Usually, he comes home from work and we catch up on the day, have dinner together, play a game or two, then I do homework.  Even on nights when I have school, I get home, we catch up on the day, and have a snack together before bed.  I get to sleep next to him at night and get fabulous cuddles, and I get to wake up to his cuddles in the morning.  For the next 4 days, I will get none of that.  He may have time to call me to catch up on the day, but that is not guaranteed.  No cuddles.  No dinner together.  And at least until tomorrow night, the house will be horribly or blessedly quiet (I haven't decided which yet) because our roommate is out of town too. 

Well, at least I have plenty of homework to distract me...


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