A Love Note to My Best Girlfriend
I haven't been in a good place for a while now even though I've been trying to power through it. Those who truly love me know this and have been being patient with me and my shit. I can't explain what it's like being around me when I'm not me you know? See...being me is this powerful ball of energy and light. I can always find the best of it all and have a good time no matter what. When you have access to me regularly you kinda get used to that so being around the absolute opposite spectrum of that for months on end can take a toll on you. You can start forgetting the good bits of me because they are so far from the surface. When I'm quiet it can be a struggle to find words to fill in the gaps and, those I love love me for all the right reasons. Not because of what I have done or can do for them. Not because of people I know or places I go. Not for anything other than the feelings they get being around me. The love they know I willingly share and can sometimes cloak them with.
Christmas Eve arrived with my not having purchased a single thing for anyone or even food for the dinner party we were hosting. I kept meaning to start. I kept picking up my keys, my wallet...I kept being inactive. Robby decided that he'd go with me to help make it all happen and we did so even after having a family emergency health scare.
I'd made lists of what I wanted to do and of what I had every intention of doing but lists mean nothing on Christmas Eve when the lines are long the shopping scare because of location and because the rest of the world has completed their lists and have their fabulous gifts wrapped under the trees waiting to exchange their thoughtfulness with those who deserve their thoughtfulness.
Me? I did what I could knowing that we had guests arriving at 6:30pm and my menu consisted of standing prime rib roast, a natural ham and all the trimmings and fixings and Lord...all I truly wanted was my mommy and my daddy and my brothers and tree with trimmings and blue and silver decorations and noise and noise and noise and hustling, bustling and noise, noise, sweet glorious noise of happy and excited children and parents.
I craved noise in the silence of our life. In a life without chaos. With complete order around me at all times.
The pace I set for myself on Christmas Eve was crazy and only a crazy person would do it but I didn't want to let anyone down so I made it all happen and it was good. It was a good thing. We ate, we drank, we were merry. I snuck away to wrap gifts for those in attendance. Gifts my depression forced me to make do with and they all smiled politely and oohed and ahhed properly because that's what people who love you do. They look at you knowing the truth of who you want to be. Who you would be if you could just push past it all. All the demons and disappointments you've allowed to heap on you and beat you down into a tiny bit of the tiniest of all you are and you smile with them knowing that this is the greatest gift they could ever give you. That they could see through it down into the heart of who you are and not judge you solely on today and not take it personally and not make your shit about them.
Because it's your shit. It's my shit.
And it's only about me.
And you use that to do things that would be humiliating to some with your stats because you know it will always be a struggle to do what you love. But you do it with a smile and a pleasant attitude so you're unthreatening. So you can have access to those you need to have access to in order to get to that next step.
Depression can fuck up so much and sometimes I wonder if it's really the thing that gets you or...is it the circumstances of it all that brings the depression to you. And that makes me think too deeply about the cause of it all.
My best girlfriend is one of God's most precious gifts to me. For Christmas, she gave me the most awesome of the awesome things. A box of them really. A box of awesome that seemed to never stop. Everything was magical. One thing after the other. Thoughtful things that she hoped, wish and probably prayed would get me back to being me. The kind of stuff others would never get me because well...they don't GET me.
A box filled with relaxation, good sleep, warm feelings and guilty pleasures.
Her gifts are always so amazing and why I will always buy her things for no reason...just because I saw it and thought of her.
Last night, after a long four days, I used one of the gifts and took a hot bath. I got into bed with the television on a thirty minute timer and I snuggled up next to my Robinator. I was asleep within 5 minutes. A deep, relaxing almost comatose sleep. Satisfying.
When I got up this morning, I stretched languorously and felt the power I often feel flowing through my body as I'm planning out my next steps and moves. As I'm shaking off that doubt that shows up sometimes even though I know perfectly well what I'm capable of. I laughed at the things that happened this week. The nail in my tire. My husband in the driveway at 5:00am in the morning changing the tire. My pumping gas in the dark standing there with cold rain sliding down my face making the cold colder. The makeup I don't wear breaking me out. My hair being damaged by someone who doesn't know how or care how to be gentle with my hair. The noise, the noise, the noise. The constant back-and-forth reaching out for something I know I can see. The lines when I DON'T.DO.LINES.
On this day I'm so grateful for my best girlfriend. That she GETS me even when the knowledge of who I am at that exact moment makes her want to strangle the shit out of me. I'm grateful she knows that when I'm lost...I haven't forgotten who I am...I'm just struggling to get back there.
I'm grateful that I have no ego about many things others would have.
I'm grateful that I know how to use my resources, even the simple one of being a cute girl, properly.
I'm grateful for my husband, the perfection that is truly him as he props me up, no matter what, with his strong shoulders and pushes me outside my comfort zone so he can watch me, once again, fly.
I'm grateful for all those who love me. The ones who aren't put off by the unanswered phone calls, texts and emails. The ones who don't take it personally. The ones who don't try to make my shit...about them.
Because it's not.
I love you.
I love yall.
Sometimes, however...I have to tuck in and rebuild and that's hard to do. So very, very hard.