April 30, 2020

Allowing myself to feel emotions. You want me to allow myself to FEEL what I’ve been avoiding. I think this is it, and I think it’s gonna take a LONG time to really feel all of it, it feels like a MOUNTAIN and a really, REALLY big mountain at that. I think I’m somewhere, under that mountain, maybe.

The primary emotion I feel, or would feel, providing I’d allow myself to experience it fully, is despondency. Is despondency even an emotion?

It’s 9 past 3, Saturday night before Easter Sunday. I’m sleepy, so sleepy I was falling asleep binge watching Dark Shadows. Still not willing to go to bed, I started puttering around online. Facebook mostly. You know how it is, you get on and one thing leads to another and another and next thing you know, it’s four hours later, at least that’s how it is for me. I sit here, in pain, really in quite a lot of pain, and I would love it if I could go lay down in bed and get comfortable and get some relief. I can’t do that though, because the bed is even worse than sitting on the couch. 

The mattress is close to 20 years old, and I’m over well, I’m HUGE so that bed has been through Hell and back and it’s very broken down and no support whatsoever. The loveseat upon which I sit is also pretty broken down, lopsided and very uncomfortable. I blame no one but myself, and I also really do hate people who complain. But how can I express what I’m FEELING and why if I can’t explain and that sounds a lot like complaining. 

I hurt so bad almost all of the time, my balance isn’t so hot either and I have a legitimate fear of falling, I say legitimate because I have fallen a few times in the last couple of years and getting up has been next to impossible, even with assistance. There’ve been several times when I’ve almost lost my balance but managed to stay on my feet by the skin of my teeth.

So. Here I am. I have some possessions. Nothing much worth a dime to anyone but me, no money, no means to purchase a mattress, or furniture such as a couch, or even a chair. The mattress is the most important thing. And I know that, had a mattress been had 5 or 6 years ago when it was brought up and considered it would have been life-changing. Literally, and for both of us. Physically I’ve deteriorated so much over the last 5 years. Not gotten any smaller, but certainly weaker, and less stable, and in considerably more pain.

The house feels like an obstacle course. Sometimes it’s more me, sometimes it’s more the house. Stuff inside the house.

Okay LIFE CHANGING, that wasn’t just hyperbole, I meant it. With a quality, firm, comfortable mattress, Frank and I’d have been sleeping better, waking up FEELING better, more ABLE to do things, I’d have had more energy, I’d not have fallen so far. So damned far. I know it, I know this to be true as well as I know anything.

And now I feel incapable, DISabled, pained, despondent, incapable, unable, powerless, hopeless, useless, miserable…

I used to laugh a LOT. 

I used to sing.

I used to. 

My days these days… I wake up, I get up, I go pee. I go get some water, I take some pills, I sit down in my place on the love seat. I log in on the computer.   After a while, no less than an hour, I’ll go get some Iced Tea, and maybe something to eat, usually just a snack, and that at the computer on the love seat. A few more trips to the bathroom, maybe some supper and/or some more snacks and bathroom breaks and MAYBE I’ll go to bed after more pills. I take a lot of pills. A ridiculous amount really.  If I go to bed, it starts all over again. If I don’t, it still starts all over again, just later on.

Meanwhile, I have no say in my life, no control over any of it, I don’t actually have any right to complain about any of that though because I abandoned any right I had to control any portion of my own life some time ago, I allowed it to just sift through my fingers, and Frank was kind enough to take up the slack and I allowed him to, and well, here we are.

Does a person who has given away or just let go of all her power have any right to feel despondent because she no longer has it? 

Should I wish Frank was stronger, more well organized, cleaner, more of what I wish I were? What right have I to go shoving my wishes off on him? But they are perfectly good wishes, how can I make them work for ME? I need them! CAN I be those things, do I have the capacity?

This is when my head starts killing me, it feels like its in a vice.

I’m so tired.

So tired of feeling so lonely. No one to talk to, oh I have people who’ll talk to me, people who’ll talk AT me all day long, but no one with whom I can have genuine conversation. Today everyone is just awaiting their turn to TALK.  Me included, I suppose, I WANT to listen and communicate on deep levels, but do I really LISTEN?