Pick Me Up

Sometimes I feel as though I do nothing with my life. That I'm utterly lazy and my life is just a void.

This is to remind myself of my week:

Worked a full work week, even after a debilitating depression stole my weekend.

Went on two runs this week, so far.

Realized I was flexible... from stretching so much over the past month.

Was sick, then still went to work later that day when I felt better.

Fixed Ruby's headlight myself.

Ignore fuzzy finger!

Changed my own car's oil.

Harvested, processed, and packed mustard greens, kale, swiss chard, strawberries, lettuce, arugula, spinach, collard greens, radishes, bokchoi for the market I'm going to tomorrow (i.e. managed a farm).

Fed, ate, bathed, stayed alive myself--good job!

So, don't worry about it, okay?

Speak Candidly for All to Hear

Today, for the first time in my life, I got drunk.

Unfortunately, the circumstances were less than superb. I began drinking at 10 am because I had already been awake for two hours, lying in bed, wishing for the sweet relief of death, shaking and sobbing alone and [feeling] deserted. I decided that if I were to kill myself, I would quit my job so they did not worry when I didn't show up and then just drive nowhere, put a pillowcase over my head and shoot myself in the head. I clung to that image like a wet dream, allowing it to build angst within me. Angst at its mere existence and angst that it could not be, not now and likely not ever. But here, let me examine my thoughts:

[Sudden nihilism is a massive bummer. Where does the world go when you realize your reality was made of delusions to keep you going?]

Self-Pity: Nearly all of the pain I felt was due to self pity and the recognition of such made it worse. It's particularly annoying when you get stuck wanting to die, knowing that your only reason for angst is because you're lonely and life isn't living up to your expectations. You don't have any actual challenges... you're just stuck in your own dumb head. Amazingly, thinking this way doesn't help relieve the crushing feeling of self-loathing.

The Key: I kept picturing myself looking at other peoples' lives thinking "the only way to get yourself out of that hole you're in is if you pull yourself out, I can't do a damn thing to help you." So, of course, I know I have my own key. I am the only one who holds to the key to my freedom. Knowing this made my self-loathing EVEN worse because of course, all the blame is then on me and I'm the only one who can solve it. I know if I went outside or joined a frisbee team or ran around I could get out of the funk but the funk is self-hatred and it makes you feel like the only way to be true to yourself is to stay where you are. Plus, you simply can't comprehend interacting with the world in such ways. It sounds so simple, to get yourself out of it, but I promise it isn't easy.

Abandonment: I love people. I love people so much I try to own them, which isn't really a great quality. But they keep moving and I keep moving and eventually I realize I'm standing here alone. I can't call my tried and true loves over to me, they are on different continents, different time zones.... the lives we lead are no longer wrapped together and they might be at work when I'm having a "crisis," leaving me to suffer alone, feeling isolated and abandoned.

Reach Out: Yeah, okay. So, when you're literally at your worst you really REALLY don't feel like reaching out to people who haven't earned your trust in that way, and sometimes you don't even feel like reaching out to the ones who HAVE earned your trust. It doesn't help that you KNOW you are at your worst and most vulnerable and you don't want to be a burden to others. Who wants people around when they are at their worst? I mean, really. Not to mention, most of us have been burned by folks who recoil when we have "episodes" so it's hard to trust that people will just accept our neuroses.

The Dark: It is dark. It's very very dark. It feels like every day you don't want to be alive while simultaneously you can't stand not living life to the fullest. It is being constantly disappointed in yourself. For me, it's wondering where my despair comes from... is it grief? Is it loneliness? Is it perfectionism? Regardless, I end up not respecting myself for feeling such self-pity. I know my privileges, they are many, and my depression makes me feel even more like a loser for feeling bad living in a world where despair runs rampant and I am so fortunate.

The Mask: People probably wouldn't know I struggle with depression. They wouldn't know that I wake up every day feeling a sad realization that a new day has begun and I have to figure out how the fuck to deal with it. I'm generally a pretty up-beat person. I feel highs so fierce I'm sure I annoy some people I encounter. But with the highs come the lows and they are just as fierce. Sometimes when you are feeling low you pretend you aren't because it's easier for you to not have people worried all the time and easier on them to, because it isn't really their job to make sure you're okay. You never wanted that to be their job.


This isn't a cry for help. I cried for help earlier--not on the public world of the web. And now I am better. But I realize a fallout is imminent as that is simply how my family responds to my dark honesty. But despite my first ever drunken stupor, I'm doing okay. I have a blanket of wonderful people who allow me to be me, at all hours when I can reach them. I've made it through this one unscathed, so don't worry. Just rejoice.

But I post this for those who watch the flickering of the images of all those happy, successful lives and wonder why they are failing. You aren't failing, m'dear, you are living in a world made of varying energies and please know it's a blessing to delve into all of your vast emotions so fully. I'm trying to learn and teach that it is okay to not know anything for your whole life. Just experience the world, that is all we can do.

Everyone is talking about recovery. But I'm here to speak candidly about living the sorrows.

Depression is certainly not all I am. I do not exist within dichotomies and singular truths. But still I say, depression runs through my veins the same as my fierce joy about the worlds' infinity.

As I Stand Here, Waiting

Lay me bare, Keep me honest.

I stand here in front of you, naked. Flesh exposed but body still withholding dreams and fears and lies; truth and disguise. How do I begin the conversation of the brutality of life? If I splay my guts on the floor, still you will not see. How do I capture the invisible, untouchable truth of being human so as to present it to you? I want to hold it in my hand for you to see and touch, recoil, cry and begin again. Not that I hold the answers. I simply hold a sliver of the questions.

These words are all I have and I try so hard to enlighten with them. There is strength in the written word, my most powerful tool. But still, it all falls short. I must practice, endlessly, to touch you with my phrases.

Discuss with me, the truth of being human. Hold nothing back. Fire into oblivion and eventually we may light a fire that burns by the invisible energy of life. Some may call it love. I will call it capture.

...
(distill)

In case you do not understand, let me translate.

I don't want to stand here, alone, pondering the eternal intricacies of life. It makes me feel forgotten, unworthy... like I am spewing nonsense into a void and people stand around watching, scratching their heads wondering why I am so crazy.

I want to discuss life with everyone. But not the small talk of life. Not what you ate this morning or how your day was. I want to talk with you about the possibilities and how they are infinite. I want to go down rabbit holes of thought. I want to find temporary answers or truths and be validated by your reception and connection.  I want to create avenues with you. Avenues that we believe have never before been created.

I don't want answers or advice. I just want discussion.

...
(distill further)

Or... fuck, I think what I am saying is I am lonely and I'm having all these ideas and feelings and no one to bounce it off of. At least, no one who seems to want to engage with it as overwhelmingly as I. I guess that is the simplest way of saying what I mean.

Desire in/of/for motion, sweet one

Hello, Sweet Meat.

I'm standing on the precipice. Looking back makes me shudder, looking down is looking into the depths of my only next. What they tell you is a lie; it really is linear. Not the universe, but you. You can only create straight lines, a law of being human.
My inevitable fall will cause the cliff to rise between here and there--it is unstoppable. But standing here, at the edge of tomorrow, I know I can no longer walk the thin line of indecision. My fate is to follow the path as long as it leads, and then some. For what are we to do in life when our time moves interminably faster than our Earth's? The mountain cannot crawl forward at your speed. At some point you fall or you turn back. I vowed never to turn back the first day I felt freedom. So now, I'm looking for you.

The one who will push me so that I never have to blame myself for regret. You will lead me into my own future, telling me, "nothing is going to be alright. And that's okay."

It won't last, I know. As the impact will be disorienting enough that I will lose everything for awhile. The chaos will enter and all that I now hold will be dropped or shattered. But still...

I want your lips on my every particle to shake my soul, reminding my core of the forces from which it came--the Earth shattering, the cosmos erupting. Kiss me into submission, knowing I am born of an endless cycle of violent destruction. So don't fear it, little one.

I want you to leave me. I want you to run from me. I want you to know that forward is the only way to go. I want to feel like collapsing and push onward, after you, legs bursting with endless motion, feet curling into the ground, drawing up energy, like straws, from the Earth.

I want you to cut the ties of my balloons without asking and smile as I watch them rise away from me forever, cursing you with tears in my eyes, "they were all I ever had!"

You will spit in my face, calling me captor.

I want hot breath caressing my ear, whispering regrets and not caring. "I regret leaving her. I regret standing still. I regret trusting. I regret losing. I regret fucking. I regret that death. I regret the way I never said goodbye. I regret that I still try. I regret the motion of my emotions, how they never seem to be at the right place at the right time. But now I'm here, smelling the sweet fragrance of the residue on your hair, and none of that matters. Not because I love you. But because this is all there is and regret is just a fragment. Nothing you find will ever be whole long enough for our sweet, slow eyes to capture." You will tell me it is all part of the beauty, both for and because of.

Hyper speed, my dear. You know I'm entering the vortex from which I can never return. Load me like a slingshot, I'll never be ready so please, release me.


"Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
and we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
for the children, they mark, and the children, they know,
the place where the sidewalk ends. "

-Shel Silverstein

The man in the Lobby/The Woman, Long Gone, in Glitter and Gloves to Dance or Fight.

There is a girl and she sits at the window of a fifth floor hotel room admiring the scene of a man in the lobby slowly playing a luxurious tune on his saxophone. She is transfixed–awash in appreciation. But of course, she only feels this peace due to her place in the world and the mother standing near. Now, her mother has gone and her place is lost; but a luxurious tune on a saxophone can, at least for a time, open the door to that same hotel room where her mother danced and the man played in the lobby.









---












Someone really must warn her not to spend her life as Gatsby did.

And The Adventures of... Depression?

Today at work I was practicing a Salmon in the Classroom presentation in which I used my hand to remember five salmon types. I looked down at my ring finger, which is used to remember silver salmon, as silver is often worn on that finger, and I noticed my mother's wedding ring. I then remembered that my mom was dead, somewhat suddenly, and began to cry until I heard the printer start up and immediately pretended to be on the phone so that the person who came to pick up their stuff wouldn't notice.

After work, in an effort to make my life less depressing, I found a meetup that looked pretty fun hosted at a brewery an hour away where you could choose between brews such as the campfire and peanut butter brew. I wrote a message to say I was new to the group, but was excited about coming and would be late and the response was: "okay." At this response I surmised that the organizer likely hated me, preferred I didn't come, and if I did go, everyone would just pretend to enjoy the fact that I was there. So, I didn't go.
...I think I have a problem.
And, I'm a master at self sabotage.

In an effort to drown my sorrows of crippling social anxiety, I opened, for the first time, a recipe book exclusively filled with chocolate recipes. As I flipped through it I realized that what I really wanted was the melting chocolate cake recipe that is my go-to in chocolate-craving times. Another flip revealed a notecard with that exact recipe written in my mother's hand.
I don't have enough eggs.

The End.

In other news, my nieces are hilarious:

Mini Memoir Spurred by College Application Prompt

Ironically, I was quite put off by Evergreen when I first toured the campus back in 2010, at the young age of 17. I didn't know yet any of my passions, who I would become, how much Evergreen's unique approach to learning would end up aligning with the way I pursued knowledge and change within myself. I only knew that I wanted to move to the Pacific Northwest and deep down I knew I wasn't really ready to go to college-the true reason for my lack of excitement while touring various colleges that fall. So, I took a gap year and fell in love with the ebbs and flows of agriculture, learning that I would not feel fulfilled unless I spent my life toiling in the dirt growing food for anyone I could. I learned I could fly to a country completely unknown to me with nothing but a backpack and a three-night reservation in a hostel and could thrive. Unfortunately, I also learned while working and traveling through New Zealand, that my mother was re-diagnosed with breast cancer and so I learned the terrifying yet liberating truth that plans and paths can drop and change in a second.

I had my heart set on a school in Florida, but with the news of my mother's cancer, I ultimately decided that Hendrix College, an easy seven-hour drive from home, was the best option. It was not the wrong choice–I met people who helped lead me toward who I would become, created ties with professors that would last a lifetime, and opened my mind to the possibility that learning in school did not have to hurt, but could in fact be truly enjoyed.  I was just getting into the groove of college the first semester of my sophomore year, having finally finished my four-year college plan when I got the call that my mom's health had plummeted. I left immediately to be with her and was blessed with three more weeks of her company before she passed on Oct. 27, 2013 at the age of 57. Despite knowing the inevitability of my mother's death, I was still taken off-guard. At 20, I entered a world of independence that was shrouded in grief. My friends, professors, and therapist helped me through and I finished another semester at Hendrix as a part time student, focusing my efforts on an anthropological study of grief in southern American culture, integrating my own personal experiences with data I was collecting.

I withdrew from Hendrix permanently in 2014, following my gut feeling that I would do better with some space to breath rather than forcing myself to stay on the path I had devised for myself before my mom's death. I knew if I was going to graduate college, it was going to be a conscious decision rather than an adherence to a path society created for me.  It didn't take long for me to start looking into Evergreen again, especially since my yearning to move to the PNW had never ceased. With more research, I was able to see how Evergreen has the ability to assist me the way I am, rather than my having to conform to an institutions' way of learning. I feel form-fitted for Evergreen in a way–knowing now that true feedback spurs me forward more so than grades ever could; knowing now that though my interests lie primarily in agriculture and environmental science, I must have room for those interests to grow and change and space enough to seek other opportunities seemingly unrelated to those disciplines to create a more holistic self; I know now that the costs of college are no joke, and since I provide for myself must choose a school that won't send me into the shackles of student debt for the rest of my life; I know now that a college degree is not an inevitable part of life, but learning is and more than anything right now, I desire to be in a space where people from all backgrounds can pursue their curiosities and I suspect I can find this at Evergreen.