During my first two years of blogging I distinctly remember putting out my every thought no matter how mundane or minute it needed to be read. I wanted for it to be read. Was it for attention? An ego boost? Or just the pure joy of playing with words and seeing what I could do? I was 23 so it was most likely all of the above for as you know 23 year olds can be a bit selfish as they venture into adulthood. 23 is second to 13 with the Me, Me, ME. So put it out there I did with little regard to who and what I wrote about. In my eyes it was MY story to be told as I saw fit or at least that is how it was justified to the angry masses. Over time I learned to rein that in a bit but I still fall of that wagon and put the Me before anything else. I can be selfish, we all can be but hey, at least I admit it.

The story that started to write on Monday but quickly scrapped in light of hurt is the story of my life – going back to the Me. I’m hesitant to write the next sentence because it is the epitome of my selfishness but here goes: Last Friday I decided that instead of dealing with things and my own faults and the reaction to them, that I was done. I mean done, done. Death done. I can hardly type the words out now but since we’re here I might as well. I took all of my prescribed medication in one fell swoop. I chased it with a glass of Malbec. I then laid down and watched Tropic Thunder and fell asleep. Saturday morning I woke up. Pleasantly surprised I might add. But more surprised by my reaction to the entire thing and how incredibly detached I was from the fact that the evening before I had actually tried to commit suicide. The way I quickly jotted off two texts to apologize and that was the end of that. The way I was happy I had cleaned the day before because a stretcher could make its way to my bedroom with ease and that my cat had plenty of water and food to last him to Monday. Tuesday at the absolute latest. The calmness of it all is what frightened me the most.

Monday I went to my therapist and told her about it all and with ease and of course with my trademark flippant behavior towards a very serious situation. How easily I could have succumbed to a serious illness because sometimes I just can’t deal.

I don’t even know where I’m going with this and how I expected to end – this post, I mean. Everything else is fine or at least better. There are some lessons to be learned an extensive amount of therapy copays to deal, the way in which I hurt my friends and family but that will be for later. For now…it’s just getting the words out. See? Selfish.

Somewhat related: If you haven’t read this from Heather Armstrong you should. She says everything I want to say but, of course, better.

On Martha’s Vineyard there is a popular spot called South Beach. It’s popular because of the beauty and intensity of the waves. They’re body surfing, boogie boarding, let’s ride it out, type waves. Garrett and I would drag our mother out to Edgartown, which is a hike in the way everything is a lengthy trip on vacation. Like seriously, you want me to walk to the end of the driveway? And then you use telepathy to get the mail to your doorstep. Pretty much like that.

Garrett and I would first go toe deep into the water getting used to the temperature and then we’d slowly wade in until we were ready to dare each other to dunk our entire bodies in. With a count to three we’d be in and the water would be glorious. That chill would be gone and we’d swim out a little deeper. Now here is something you should know about my mother; when she was about eight years old she went to Jones Beach with her brothers, cousins and father. While at the beach she went out too far into the waves and almost drowned. She survived – duh – and I swear to God, I could not make this up if I tried, when she got home she went bike riding and was hit by a car.

My mother almost drowned and then got hit by a car within four hours thus spending the remainder of the summer in a wheelchair with a cast on her arm and leg. And then I wonder why she doesn’t ‘feel my pain’ when I have a sinus infection. Probably because I can use both of my legs.

All of that said, she is no fan of the water. I mean she’ll go out into it but having once almost drowned she’s far more respectful of the water. Whereas Garrett and I are practically fearless and will wade out until we can no longer touch and await the waves. God, I love that rush of the waves. When you can spot them coming and start to swim back only to have them take you away. That rush of being carried and weightless. But then there are those other moments, anyone who has experienced a beach knows what I am speaking of. When the waves carry you and you’re underneath but hark! There is another one at its tail and the next thing you know as you rise up out from the surf there is another wave to knock you back over. And then again. Again. Again. Your body hitting the sandy bottom. Moments later you’re standing up looking towards the beach thinking, holy fuck, did you see that? But no one ever notices as you gasp and catch your breath while shimmying to get the sand out of those unfortunate places. Upon landing back at your towel you wonder how long you were under there for? How long did the waves have you in their grasp? It was only a few minutes you realize, but, my God, it felt like eternity.

I have been having panic attacks lately. Three in the past four days. So awful they were that they rendered me unable to fulfill my best friend duties and left me under the covers, tears in my eyes, telling myself that things would be ok. My aforementioend best friend asked me what they felt like and I told her about the waves, about not being able to get up and take a deep breath and in those few minutes of struggling for a full breath it seems as if hours go by. Later I would explain to my doctor that it was only a few minutes. In response she told me that they were probably due to ‘anticipatory anxiety’ though I just say it’s due to ‘general fucked up-ness’.

My most recent panic attack was in a parking lot next to my car. Wind was whipping and it was frigid so I wheezed my way into my car but I didn’t cry. I just teared upon the realization that to live like this was surely not living at all. I’ve spent the past several weeks under waves trying to get up. If I stay down there, I’ll drown. It’s these instances when I need someone to yell at me and tell me to stand because my feet touch. And just like that, I can breathe again.

On my left arm I have these four small, circular scars. They used to be dark and noticeable and in the six years since these marks were made, they’ve long faded to the point where I don’t notice them. But for the first days, weeks and months they were made – self inflicted, of course – and quickly covered with Neosporin and a bandaid. There were long sleeve shirts during a warm DC spring and when they were finally healed enough, my mother demanded that I purchase makeup so that I could don my fanciest dress to an Ellis Island ball. People think that they’re chicken pox scars. I had the chicken pox with no residual effects. No these are cigarette burns. The kind you get when you are walking around Spring Valley alone. You smoke your Marlboro Light down to the very end and pause for a beat before holding your breath and pressing the burning end of a butt down on your flesh. It never hurt probably because I had spent months feeling nothing but complete despair. So I suppose I was relieved to feel something? I don’t know.

What I do know is that in the years since burning myself in order to feel something. And a brief digression to see these words written in a Word document and to realize that I am totally one of Those People, well, that is a shock in and of itself; regardless in the years that have passed there have been therapists and medication and coping mechanisms. They say that it’s ok to feel sad at times but I know the difference between feeling genuinely sad and an intense struggle against yourself as your head says, “Fuck it. I can’t do this anymore”. It’s isolating. You want to reach out and have someone help and yet to put your finger on exactly what is wrong is next to impossible. Because it’s nothing and everything bothering me. This feeling that I’m not doing something right and I don’t know how to fix it and so I wallow.

I thought writing right now, in my office, with The Feeling hanging over my head, nudging me on would force me to come up with the words of what this feels like. How everything seems impossible and the struggle not to look forward to the end of the week but to just get through the damn day. It’s terrifying. It’s isolating. It’s as if there is no way to stop It. I knew this is what would happen; when you are diagnosed with something that actively takes you through a roller coaster of emotions because that is what Bipolar Disorder does. One day you can do anything! And days later it’s a struggle to do one thing.

I don’t know why I’m telling you about this. Perhaps if I get it out I’ll feel better? It’s not pity I’m looking for. It’s just…sometimes you feel that you need to say something. Anything. And this is one of those times.

Earlier today I became thoroughly and shockingly annoyed over the apathy of others. I demanded response and some sort of commentary to a new Obama administration appointment and instead no one shared the joy, wonder, curiosity and overwhelming amount of giddiness that erupted upon hearing of a thisclose vacancy in the United States House. As much as I dislike apathy towards politics I find my reaction to the apathy a bit deplorable. Who am I to be judgemental and tell people that they should care about Sonia Sotomayor or John McHugh? Why should I be the one to tell others that how a presidential candidate feels about a woman’s right to choose or Plessy v. Ferguson will end up impacting generations? That isn’t my job and yet the way it maddened me today. It was so…well…it was unnecessary. And I totally take back when I said – behind your back – that if Neil Patrick Harris was giving someone a blow job on my bed then you would care more than who Obama was appointing to very high powered positions. I’m sorry.

***

On Sunday evening – pre the day of self righteous bitch ass behavior – I burned three of my fingers on my right hand. I burned them after I put METAL into the microwave so I could make tea because I couldn’t find my normal tea making accouterments. So there I was grabbing hot metal, fleshy fingers first out of the microwave. Good news is that in the event that I commit a serious felony I have no finger prints. Bad news is that I’m using the hunt and peck method when it comes to typing. There’s also a ruined manicure and my father was rather disappointed by my Vulcan salute because my fingers are so effed up that I can’t tell anyone to ‘live long and prosper’ with the proper enthusiasm.

***

I think I’ve spent the last three weeks without telling you that I’ve started writing at MamaPop again. I’m…and I’m loathe to admit this so I’m taking deep breaths but it’s not nearly as bad as Holly crying during Speidi’s wedding so I really shouldn’t care…..I’m doing recaps of The Real Housewives of New Jersey(1, 2, 3). And I fucking love it more than is appropriate. Especially that Caroline. The Carmela Soprano of the group who will fuck a bitch up in a minute.

***

I leave for DC again next week. I’ll have to update my suggestions but that is the least of my worries right now. I keep flipping through my paper planner to July and then I flip back. I then I look at July again and then I flip back. Rinse and repeat. It’s because I need a Klonopin every time I think of July. The running around and the multiple experiences with TSA and how I’m going to pack and the number of tattoos I will be getting and suddenly I’m awake at 2:30AM thinking about standing by myself at BlogHer because EVERYONE HATES ME.

***

Last night I lived my worst fear: I saw my therapist at the bar. I’m not really supposed to be drinking. We pretended not to know each other. Let’s just say I’ll have some ‘splaining to do about that goblet full of (shitty) Meritage.

***

I’m posting now in hopes that tomorrow comes sooner. I’m awaiting a special package at the suggestion of Karen and OMFG I cannot wait to show you guys and also I owe Karen a kiss. And this chick needs some practice like whoa.

Since we last spoke I seem to have stopped sleeping. Let me rephrase that, my body is rebelling against something and while I lay in bed vewy, vewy quietly like I’m hunting wabbits, my circadian rhythm is like, ‘fuck that noise, let’s party’ while my brain is like, ‘How do I remove myself from this situation?’ and I am like, ‘I’m going to cry now. You all work it out’. And then I start writing posts about how my brain and my body have actual conversations with each other. Perhaps I’ll share with you the one I wrote where they duel.

This has never happened before. I’ve never been so exhausted and yet so unable to sleep. I’ve never felt like my head is detached from the rest of me, off doing it’s own thing while I just follow along going through the motions.

You know how babies are when they’re beyond tired and so they cry and cry and cry and become irritable? But then they eventually stop and fall asleep at like 7 AM for a few hours and you’re like, ‘awww, look at my sleeping angel sweetie pie’. And they are able to do that because they aren’t responsible adults with jobs and worries about the economy and why Kelly Bensimon is such a raging bitch?

I’d be a baby right now. One of those crying, screaming insane babies who is so overtired that my only recourse is to lose my shit because my brain and the rest of my body aren’t on the same page.

I’m miserable.

I’ve been known to drink quite a bit and now I feel compelled to assure that this is not a daily occurance. I don’t wake up each morning craving vodka on the rocks but I do fully embrace my heart healthy glass of red wine with my meal. But then there are the times where I’m flitting around, caught in the moment. The drinks are poured and the laughs start; the stories and “Remember when…” that end in a slew of words and a fit of giggles. Those moments when we up and decide on anothe round because sometimes it feels good to be caught in the whirl of things only stopping to smile and embrace the good. The evenings wear on and the guffaws turn into a cacophany of noise as it is so possible to be carried on an air of good feeling and adrenaline. But the evening ends and what was once fun slowly turns topsy turvy complete with the spins and what was once fun may turn sour. Sometimes you puke. Or sometimes you just fall on your ass and the laughter starts again. The best parts are the mornings; waking up giggling with friends over brunch. It’s the silly happy drunk with life and martinis and stories to share.

At the start of January I was drunk. Slap happy drunk and full of good thoughts and feelings. I kept refilling my glass and grooving around so feuled by pure energy that I thought it would propel me to a year of awesomeness. Then 11 days in, I fell on my ass. I wasn’t drunk and happy go lucky anymore. I was ornery, sad and surly. Convinced that I was destined to falter and fail. It was this crushing failure that rears its ugly little head every once in awhile. The time that burns and turns everything inside into something the consistency of sawdust.

But I do that a lot – I get swept up in the moment, lose my footing and then fall. It’s not just the wine but its how life is. Going through motions and enjoying things, bobbing and weaving and yeah, you fall on your ass. I fall on my ass more than I would ever like to admit. You fall, you might puke, you might even get a hangover but you have to keep going. It takes a few weeks but until one day you sit at a table with your friends laughing over martinis. Remembering why you do the things that you do and that even when you have those awful bad days that are so hard to bear that tears prick your eyes that there is the good.

So sometimes I get drunk I fall on my ass. And instead of laying there whimpering I get up again and eventually throw my head back and laugh because it never fails that there are these people around me who help me up again and support and I lean on them to something better just around the corner.

To be honest I hate those assholes who do one or all of the following:

A) Say, “I have something awesome to tell you guys but I can’t tell you right now”  code for: I’m knocked up or I’m writing a book or both,

B) Say, “I cannot blog anymore because XYZ that you don’t know about are going on and so I can’t” but picture that person doing it with a Scarlet O’hara type look and a hand on their head as they cannot bear to write much more and it must be said as dramatically as possible,

OR

C) Just up and disappear off the face of the earth

My detest comes in the form of an eyeroll and I want to say, “If you don’t want to blog then don’t. I don’t care but don’t make some grand sweeping exit and then return five days later with a story about that funny thing your kid did”. Then again, I can be a supreme asshole. Like vicious.

Today on the way home I knew I wouldn’t be able to physically bring myself to write any words anywhere for quite some time. In fact I’m in tears about it now because it feels as if there is this huge pressure from every inch of my body that is preventing me to do much of anything except to lay here in a pool of snot and tears on my pillow which will now need to be washed because ew; snot and tears.

This is my no means a permanent thing and certainly not limited to leaving you lovely people in the dust while kicking up my heels all the wall and high-fiving passersby as a symbol of my freedom. I just cannot physcially bring myself to write words or … God, go to work. And I never thought I’d be that person so consumed by some fucking illness that I can’t function.

My last attempt at normalcy was dress buying today for an Inauguration cocktail party. I planned out each special ocassion outfit for next week to be a theme, “What’s black and white and hot all over? ME” and now I am ‘meh’ towards anything Obamarama related. Like leaving and doing nothing is fruitless and I cannot count the number of times I’ve referred to myself as irrelevant over the past 72 hours.

There’s this Ray Charles song called Drown in My Own Tears. Every time it comes on the my iPod during a shuffle I skip over it because it’s so sad and melancholoy and really now, what’s depressed and said and crying all over? Well, the answer once again would be ME.

*I had closed the comments because I didn’t want to be THAT girl and all, “Wah, wah, WAHHHH. Overdramatic. Woe! Leave me comments to make me come back!” and then you all would be like, “Ooh, look at me playing the world’s tiniest violin” and it would all just go downhill from there and not make me feel better at all. So there. If I’m going to be an asshole – and if I use that word one more time Melissa will drag her ass up here and bitch slap me – I might as well embrace my full overdramatic assholeness. Right? Right.

This started Sunday late-evening:

I haven’t experienced this Sunday night Woe! Agony! Self-loathing! since the early days of Grey’s Anatomy. Possibly before and during the Denny Duquette era (Part I that is) when it showed on Sunday nights at 10. It was always Meredith’s last lines that got me along with the final strums of some indie song that screamed heartbreak. I always cried at the end. I’d be sitting there in my Capitol Hill apartment in a gross leather chair, crying because of some preposterous story line from the mind of Shonda Rhimes and each and every time I fell prey. I turned into a giant puddle of mush and I always thought it was because of the spectacular writing. The moving music. The romance and unrequited love. But it was just a catalyst for a good cry. Giant tears rolling down my cheeks as I sat huddled in the dark, mentally preparing for a new week. The thing that got me with those moments – those Sunday nights – was that in the grand scheme of things nothing was ever wrong. And yet there I was with this profound sense of unwavering sadness over this inexplicable thing.

It’s now Tuesday and I cannot for the life of me remember what had me so downtrodden and melodramatic and confusing my life with that of a doomed Shakespearean tale. But clearly it was something good that had me all worked up and near tears. Alas, it seems to be over now as these things always seem to pass once the doom and gloom of Sunday evening is over. That one time in a week when everything seems just a tad more stressful than it was just 12 hours prior. That one time of the week when the fear of what’s coming in the morning – the relentless hell that is Monday – seems a bit overwhelming and the week ahead could be amazing or it could be unnerving.

And again I’m struck with that BUT I WANT TO KNOW NOW feeling. I still hate not knowing what’s to come. Sunday night pathos could probably be cured with a magic 8 ball.

You know those people who when you ask them how they’re doing, they reply fine all rapid fire like and succinct and then when you press for details because you are genuinely interested in knowing how this person’s life is going, everything is a one word answer? Those people who say “Fine. Oh, I’m fine. Everything is fine. Just fine” as if “fine” is the only word they know in the English language and to find a replacement would require a thesaurus. I am that person. The person who answers ‘fine’ to everything and then thinks that that is a perfectly adequate answer and nothing else should be inquired as to the state of my general well being. Obviously I am alive and breathing without an assistive device so clearly nothing can be that bad. Right? Right. But oh, oh, the way I can put on a front. I should have been a damn theater major with the way I can smile on the outside while feeling as if every ounce of happiness is being sucked from my insides with the force of a Dyson; well, it’s an art.

And the Oscar for Most Able to Look Happy on the Outside While Dying a Slow and Painful (and somewhat exaggerated) Soul Sucking Death on the Inside goes to…Heather Barmore.

My shoulders are starting to hurt due to the number of times I’ve given myself a congratulatory pat on the back for not sitting in the corner, rocking back and forth and threatening to bite people if they come near me with another asinine question. And that is the best way to describe how God-awful this summer has been. Then again, in the grand scheme of things and as I stated so eloquently before, I am still breathing and standing unassisted but still in the grand scheme of things known as my life and mental well being, I think this summer would go down as the one when I almost ended up in a straight jacket.

But of course, I was FINE! No really, just FINE! So fine in fact that on July 31st, I wrote something that will forever be saved in DRAFT and there it will stay until I have a teenager and my teenager throws herself on the floor in some crazy dramatic fashion because life isn’t fair and she has it so hard and OMFG I didn’t let her stay out until 2 AM. Then I will show my teenage daughter this DRAFT post and tell her that she can’t over drama me. Oh hell no, if she wants to see overdramatic hyperbole and prove herself worthy of throwing an excellent temper tantrum, then she needs to try a little harder. For her mother is wholly unimpressed.

I’ll give you a paraphrased excerpt. The part where I literally walked around a small coastal town feeling as if I was losing my mind while everything inside of me broke in two: “I’m wearing shades not because my future is bright but because I can’t walk around town in tears. I make calls and stifle each sob as I wander up and down the main street trying to find some sense of relief. I head to the Ferry to get a schedule and peer over the edge. There’s a railing on Beach Road but it’s almost waist high and the water isn’t nearly deep enough to incur the damage that I would really need at this point. So instead I hoist my bag back over my shoulder, wipe my eyes and head home.” Actually, I walked back home and drank Bacardi straight from the bottle and cried myself to sleep. Then I woke up had some clam strips and was suddenly right as rain.

The summer was all about taking several small things, having them crash together at the exact same time as if they all planned to converge based on wind speed and temperature to fuck with my brain and lo a tornado has dropped down in my cerebral cortex. All of the little things were only exacerbated by my already fragile mental state and then stick me on a plane all over the damn country and as you can imagine there were moments when I was about as a pleasurable as a colicky six month old with reflux who is teething and thinks that sleep is for pussies.

The other day I stepped out of my office and it was slightly chilly. Not freezing but a nice 73 degrees and cool enough for a ¾ sleeve jacket. It smelled like fall. Like right around the corner would be pumpkin spice lattes and pick your own apples and cowl neck sweaters. That was the night that I finally turned off the fan and decided that I wouldn’t be in need of it anymore. It wouldn’t be hot as hell anymore and the interminable hell that had been a personal slugfest through summer appeared to be over. At last. I’ve been looking forward to September for quite sometime. Perhaps because I would be adding colors like ‘eggplant’ and ‘plum’ to my wardrobe or because I knew that if I could make it to September without quitting my job or life, then I would be OK. And then it would be smooth sailing and my parents would high five in a few weeks on my 25th birthday for raising a child who made it a quarter century without going to prison on charges of Losing Her Shit.

Yesterday, I finally felt a bit more settled. As the remainder of the summer weight was lifted off of my shoulders and I felt my feet a little more firmly planted. Yes, I thought, I feel good now. When I got home a package had arrived from Suebob. In it was a note that I read first before tearing into what was in the bubble wrap. You see, during one of my jaunts through somewhere, I lost all of my favorite jewelry. Including my superhero necklace and my pearls. Yes, these were material things that can easily be replaced but my superhero necklace always made me feel better and my pearls went with everything. The note from Suebob was expressing her sadness for me when I lost my superhero necklace and that she saw that I had been wearing one in most of my BlogHer photos. She happened to have two and one of them wasn’t her style and so she sent it to me. She sent me a brand new superhero necklace. But! And there’s always a but, when I thanked her there was a caveat. The caveat being that it needed to be a Pay it Forward scenario. She made me thrilled beyond believe with her generosity and now I had to be a little kinder. A little less acerbic and less bite to my words. “Wag more, bark less” she said. Cease with my feelings of woe is me and life is too hard and I should just pack up and move somewhere else because I’m not cut out for anything. So I agreed. And now that the end of summer has arrived, for once I am not lying through my teeth when saying that I feel a little bit better than my previous self.

Farewell, summer. You were a Goddamn royal pain in the ass like nails on a chalkboard and metal hitting a filling and like being kicked in the groin repeatedly for sport. You will not be missed. Bring on the knee high boots and turtleneck sweaters.