Microclimates

I spoke with a lot of people this weekend and reconnected with some old friends. The camaraderie, Iʻve missed this last little while. The knowing. When you see friends with whom you have all this history, itʻs like a warm hug, isnʻt it? I feel rooted again.

And the very next second, Iʻm not. Iʻm unsettled and anxious. I feel it in my chest and stomach, that tightness, but itʻs also an emptiness.

Who am I? Where do I fit in? Why donʻt I love myself?

These shifts happen all the time. I like to think of them as microclimates, you know? The shift is usually subtle, but they are all over the place and can escalate quickly.

A friend who I saw on Sunday tried to kill herself that night.

This might confuse a lot of people who are lucky enough to have little to no experience with depression-- how could this happen? She seemed fine. We talked and laughed and hugged that very day!

Because these things can change between breaths. Between one exhale to the next inhale, you can breathe out joy and suck in pain. It just happens. And though I canʻt speak to my friendʻs depression, I can relate to the quickness of that shift. It happened to me that very day, multiple times over.

Why donʻt I love myself? Why donʻt I love myself? Why donʻt I love myself?

Why canʻt I be happy?

It makes me crazy. It makes me cry. Every day is a struggle.

On the struggle scale with 10 being super hard and 1 being super easy, I tend to hover around a 3 on a daily. But make no mistake, itʻs a struggle. Every day requires some kind of effort, and itʻs worse if Iʻm tired or hungry (although, thanks a fucking lot, depression, for also suppressing my appetite. Ugh.). I can span the scale in a day, going from a 2 to a 9 then down to a 1.

But hereʻs the success: I know in my heart, my brain, and my guts that Iʻm making progress. I know Iʻm learning to love myself and to manage my anxiety and depression. Iʻm learning new moves, gaining new tools, changing bad habits. I need to trust myself, and in lieu of that trust, I can be patient with myself.

Hereʻs the thing, though. Until such a time when I can confidently proclaim that I love myself (or whatever the fuck that looks like), until I spend more time in a 2 than an 8, it sucks. It fucking sucks.

 

NOTE: Iʻve previously written in another post that "every day is not a struggle." This is not a lie or a contradiction. This really just illustrates how I learn and grow and how I manage. I donʻt always know what the fuck is going on or how to identify and describe my experiences. But I try.