meeting

People talk about making lifestyle changes first before medication. And usually I would agree with them wholeheartedly. But what happens when the depression wipes out any and all concentration, motivation, and desire? A cup of coffee and some pep pills can only flow through my bloodstream for so long until they wear off and I'm left an anxious pile of passivity. In other words, forcing myself to get up and take those first steps to becoming productive is next to impossible. I wish more people would sympathize with and understand this. Instead, I feel as if I come across as "weak" and "lazy" for turning to prescription drugs. "They aren't a crutch, Meghan, they are a last resort." No, that's where you are wrong and insensitive. They are a crutch and they are not a last resort.

That being said, I am still conflicted. I spent a good decade of my life on antidepressants and am still dissecting those years. Were they years that were lived in a haze or would I have been in a haze without my medication? There is virtually no way to know since the way it happened is the only way I know. Perhaps the one thing that nags at me the most is that I took these pills during my formative years. My late teens/early twenties was spent medicated, a period of time when I was also trying to develop an identity and "come into my own." Did the medication interfere with that development? Am I left standing at the doorway to my thirties still unsure of who I am?

Maybe this is why I continue to write on my blog and in my journal. I write to uncover and discover. I write to meet myself. Hello, Meghan. Who are you?

return to sender

I wonder if he realizes what a labyrinth he is. I actually wonder this. I sit in my mother's house next to the window that looks out to a church I abandoned years ago and wonder. His purity is unmarked; I wish he knew that.

The snow continues to fall, covering up the tracks we left on the path earlier this year.

(I will leave this in a nearly empty wine bottle. Look for it or else it will look for you.)

gutters

I am deeply appreciative of the comments and concern I received from my last post. I do not want anyone to think that I disregarded what they said; I just don't quite know how to respond.

I want to get help, but with limited income I do not know where to turn. I don't want to put all of that emotional baggage on any of my family members/friends. That's what therapists are for, right? Maybe one of you can hurry and become a licensed psychologist and then give me your service for a very discounted price. "Give me your service"? More like GET YOUR MIND OUT OF THE GUTTER. More like I WALKED IN THE GUTTER FOR AT LEAST 40 MINUTES TODAY, BUT HAD NO IDEA IT WAS EVEN THE GUTTER BECAUSE EVERYTHING WAS COVERED IN A BLANKET OF SNOW AND A SHEET OF ICE AND A TWIN BED OF DESPERATION. Wait.

But seriously, wait for me. I will come around. I am worth the wait, good things come to those who wait, a mind is a terrible thing to wait (?), the body is willing but the heart is waiting, waiting for the storm to pass while passed out in the gutter.

same old story

I wish I could remember who I used to be.

I used to chew, swallow, and enjoy meals. I would let everything digest and do what what it needed to do (you know, give me nutrients and energy and such). I allowed. I rejoiced. I did not even think to write blog posts about it. (Back then we had no blogs! We were Internet-free! Imagine that!) The act of consuming did not consume my thoughts. Or at least I think that's how it used to be. Like I said, I can barely remember.

I wish to be blunt about this and not abstract: My eating disorder is ruining my life. I promise I am not being melodramatic. It has ravaged my health and my heart and has left me surrounded with obsessions, not friendships. I push away people and potentially life-channging opportunities in order to make time for my eating disorder and everything that comes with it. It takes up all of my mental, physical, and emotional energy. I have none left.

I don't know where to go from here.

ledge

What if I'm still slightly in love with you (and you and you)? You (and you and you) have moved on and have found embraces elsewhere. Or maybe you haven't moved on. Maybe your thoughts and words are not focused on moving, but rather staying with the stagnant and watching with wondering eyes. Your attention to what others move past unaware is why I still cling to you or the idea of you or the idea of the idea of you and you are a labyrinth. Did you already know this? You are simultaneously a meditation and a maze into madness. Keep your eye on the edges and ledges that passively surround you; who knows what will fall?

I am quietly feeling the shape of your bones from thousands of miles away.

on the body

If you are a fan of quietly crying into your pillow right before you fall asleep, then you should definitely read Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body at bedtime. It will do the trick. I know from very recent personal experience. (Really though, that book is a language lover's wet dream. I thank Megan for reigniting my Winterson obsession.)

Let it be known that this post does not have any kind of structure! Just thoughts! All of my posts are just thoughts! We are just thoughts and forgotten punchlines and Baberaham Lincolns! I'm trying to pass time, that's all.

Maybe most of you did not know this, but my dream of dreams is to pursue art. Visual arts. Painting. I do not tell many people that I paint. Why is that? Because I have never felt authentic. It doesn't feel like something I "do"; rather, it is something I am. It is an extension of my psyche more than a physical act. Isn't that the purest form of authenticity? So why do I still feel like a fraud?

Where do I go when the snow inside of me starts to melt? I am used to bundling up, but now it's time for the unraveling before I suffocate and drown.

feeding my inner sylvia

I dread the routine, but I also crave it like a drug.

I am addicted to tastes and rhythms and attention. I am addicted to the tangible and physical and the transitory and metaphysical. I am obsessed with connection and disconnection simultaneously. I hate the messiness of life, but I will defend that same messiness until the day I die.

And death? Maybe that's the universal phobia and pheromone. We are repelled and attracted to death, caught up in cycles.

I feel detached. A large part of me -- or maybe just small fragments that create empty space -- is left in the past, perhaps five or so years ago. Maybe seven, maybe six. Point is, I am separated and floating between and through things, events, places, and people without touching, without absorbing.

I have mastered the art of being the observer. It is a luxurious and deeply lonely position to be in.

My lifeline has become various screens through which I can filter and control. It is a sterile landscape inside my mind, a world devoid of loyal fingerprints. (Fingerprints will always single out and identify another being, simply due to the one-of-a-kind crevices and valleys and ridges of the skin.)

I want to be held just so I can practice arching my back and escaping the grasp.

Someone imitating a zen master once told me that freedom is found in the restraint.

Restraint from what? I'd rather have a solitary moon in the vast pool-of-a-sky than a trapped bulb under a shade.

bury/beauty

I miss myself.

But the HILARIOUS thing is that I am not quite sure I've ever known myself. How can I miss someone I've never met?

The shortened days and this old winter coat I seem to be living in offer a sort of protection from everything I do not wish to confront. It is easier than I imagined it would be to live within the imagination. It's a labyrinth inside my mind (minus the muppets and David Bowie) (add in a couple of black holes).

Confessions have become easier and less scandalous to me. I will tell you anything, just ask. I will still bury my head in the sand, sure, but only because I like the way the waves feel.

Beauty lies just beyond our grasp.

butterflies in my coffee

And then suddenly it's, like, BOOM -- coffee. Coffee and Mountain Dew, man. Good effing morning. I'm still a tired mother effer, but at least I am a buzzed mother effer. I will take buzzed over black any day. Black coffee, that is, not black the race. I sometimes wish I was black.

Everyone!!! I do not clearly remember writing the above paragraph! I fuzzily remember it, but not clearly. I remember once calling a past love of mine "Fuzz Face." It was endearing.

Speaking of love... No, let's not. I spoke too soon about it in my last post and I may have not been entirely honest. I was not honest with myself. There are probably a select few who make my stomach butterflies come alive (gross?). And it's awful! It is awful because, duh, who wants to get into a relationship? I will be bold right now and say that all relationships end up in sadness or jealousy or misunderstandings or uncomfortable comfort. Okay, maybe I stirred in some pessimism with my coffee-n-mountain-dew this morning... Or maybe I am just JADED. God. Have I really turned into one of those unbearable people? Perhaps.

There probably is not a "solution" to this "problem." And "why" do I "keep" "using" so "many" quotation "marks"? Because they are there to use. I don't need to always explain my choices.

I will take a cue from an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show (that I may have never seen) and begin the process of learning to love myself in order to one day fully love another person selflessly. How do I go about this? I can start by taking myself out for a decent cup of coffee. This instant coffee shit is shit.

seventy-four seconds too long

I cancel plans.

I postpone.

Sometimes I even make up excuses, although most of the time I try to be as honest as possible.

I guess it's just that I have an enjoyable time entertaining myself alone in my room. I can either be doing that or I can be forcing small talk in a crowded cafe sipping on coffee I can't afford. I choose the former.

That sounds harsh. Maybe I am exhausted from work? Maybe I am grumpy because I have that dreaded winter cold sneaking into my throat and ears? And there's even the possibility that maybe I am simply tired of searching for outside sources to complete whatever I think is lacking. (Note to self: Nothing is lacking. Nothing is everything, everything is nothing. Also: Go eat a sandwich.)

Here's what I do (and do not) want to say (rather, type) (enough with the parentheses) (you are becoming a caricature of yourself, sweet Meg): I do not like any particular person romantically. Well, I have tiny crushes here and there that last anywhere from 74 seconds to a fortnight. But very, very, very rarely do they go beyond the two week mark. Yes, I build you up in my mind. We all do that with one another. Yes, I plan our entire life together and imagine kids and dogs and vacations to forests and the Eastern states. Yes, we lie in the same bed and you brush your teeth while I take a shower. We stand in line together at the grocery store. We argue over the price of something we'll inevitably forget about once we get into the car. And you'll drive. And I'll wish you would have opened the door for me, but I'll be silent about it. Let's watch that documentary tonight, you suggest. I comply. Someday we'll grow old and ugly and rest our bodies next to each other in a city cemetery. And then the two weeks (or minute and fourteen seconds) are up and I am back on OkCupid searching for another fix.

Now what I really want to say is I'm sorry.

invisible lines define

How is it that I can be so sure of something one day and then quite literally overnight I am left feeling lost and confused?

If I was a super hero, my super power would be invisibility. I'd be invisible and watch others without getting involved. I wish to observe. I want to soak in a person and their vulnerabilities, but from a distance. This, I have come to find out, is impossible. There is no way to experience another being without surrendering.

But maybe right now I don't want to surrender. Maybe it's okay for me to stay inside my fortress. I can change my mind countless times; I would just rather, for right now, do it alone.