Breakable

I've been listening to a lot of Ingrid Michaelson lately. This is partly just by default. It's about the only thing I've repurchased from iTunes and I haven't gotten too many of my CDs uploaded. So my iTunes is disproportionately Ingrid Michaelson-y. But it's also a choice I often make because much of her music feels like a soundtrack for what's going on with me these days.

And we are so fragile,
And our cracking bones make noise,
And we are just
Breakable, breakable, breakable girls and boys

Even me.

So, there was admitting that. There was admitting that this all had become too much for me. There was admitting that while these problems may not compare to what so many people go through, they are my problems and they are not easy for me right now. There was admitting that I was lacking the ability to cope that I had always had before. There was, after all of this, no denying that this was not normal for me, that I was not only not great or not good, but not ok.

That this was, in a word - a big, scary, unexpected for me word - depression.

And then there was asking for help.

That was not at all easy for me.

I wanted to believe that I would get a job and that would fix it. But if the past two years have taught me anything, it's that there is no guarantee of getting a job.

If this were you and I were the me of the past, I would have told you that of course something would come along. Things would work out. They always do. "I'll never get a job" is an irrational statement. I see that. Except it is difficult to really convince myself of that, based on my experience.

And there is the guilt, the feeling that I haven't tried hard enough, haven't done every last thing I could have done to get a job, any job teaching. And the feeling that everyone else is judging me for that. And judging me for spending any money at all. And judging me for not being what or who I should. That is irrational too. Except I judge me for these things. It is hard to believe that you don't, too.

But all that I know is I'm breathing.
All I can do is keep breathing.

Part of getting better, I'm told, is writing down these thoughts and seeing them for what they are, then writing things that are true. Except I can't make myself do that. I can't make myself do a lot. I do the things that I can to try to get a job. I read blogs and Twitter. I read my email but rarely write any. I watch TV. I sleep. Rather, I spend time in bed. Because while I have all the time in the world to sleep right now, I also have dark circles under my eyes. I lay in bed and think and those thoughts become a spiral, a riptide, pulling me under.

Doing is overwhelming. Too hard. Too much effort. I'd rather not, thanks. Except I'm told that the getting better is in the doing, not the thinking. Thinking has always been the thing for me, far more than doing. But my thoughts have turned against me. They can't be trusted like I was once so confident that they could.

The best way I can describe it to you is to compare it to last winter. It snowed all the time. Except of course it wasn't all the time. Nothing is all the time, is it? But it felt that way. And I felt certain that it would never end. Of course I knew that it would eventually stop snowing. I knew that spring would come. But in the midst of all of that snow, I did not believe it was going to stop. Could not fathom it.

I know that the time will come when I will feel good again. I know this, but I don't believe it.

Open me up and you will see
I'm a gallery of broken hearts
I'm beyond repair, let me be
And give me back my broken parts

I just want to know today, know today, know today
I just want to know something today
I just want to know today, know today, know today
Know that maybe I will be ok