Friday, March 06, 2009

Never Done

I'm not sure why I did what I did tonight, but nonetheless, I've turned down plans to get together with an aforementioned superficial friend in favour of being alone this evening. So here I sit on a Friday night with nothing in particular to do, and feeling rather mopey.

Of course I've been feeling mopey since Wednesday night. A likely side-effect of going off the meds I suppose. Which causes me more than a little bit of dread, because I'd hate to have to go back on them and endure the zombie state of reintroducing them to my system. *sigh* It's very difficult to admit to depression as an actual "illness". Even now, after enough years (taking pills) for me to lose count, I still feel like antidepressants are a cop-out for me. Like they're an excuse to shut-down and not deal with my real feelings. I have to remind (and justify to myself) that depression isn't "merely feeling sad". It's not some event that happens along that you have to mourn to overcome. And yet, I perpetuate my own stigma, by feeling the need to be pill-free. Truthfully, I don't like them. I don't like the sexual side-effects more than anything else, but I also hate the muted colour they help you see the world in. It took a year of suggestion from my doctor to get me to go on them because I just didn't want to. And I perish the thought of actually admitting to her that I've taken my own initiative to abandon them. I honestly think I'd rather drown in emotion than monkey around with different varieties as replacements or alternatives. I want to accept my sadness as a part of me that I can control and subdue and occasionally revel in when things get too hard to bare. It's one of my design flaws. Something I have to learn to love about myself.

Facing facts though... I'm crying... a LOT. Like every day. And that can't possibly be normal. In sticking with my cognitive therapy I do try to limit myself to a short period, and then just letting it go by rationalizing my grief and sadness, and countering it with gratitude for all I have to be thankful for. Gratitude is empowering and humbling. And I do have so much to be thankful for, that's it's really an exercise in blatant "assholishness" to dwell on everything that makes me miserable. My life is good. 'Better than good. I just have to keep my sight set on that.

I'm just so affected by people and things. I find it virtually impossible to not be. People are really awful to one another... and you don't even have to pay attention to the news to see it manifested in so many things. Malice and cruelty, selfishness and greed, fear, hate and just plain ol' apathy.

Of course that's not my only source of woe. I'm lonely. Mind-numbingly, aching for companionship, and someone to just take a genuine interest in me. But then, that could be labelled ego I suppose. Since this past 8 months has been the first time in so many years that I've actually been alone I think I'm feeling the isolation with a little more magnitude than I would otherwise.

Anyhow... woe is me... boo hoo hoo... just venting and giving words to some unexpressed thoughts. I will be ok. I always am. And with good reason. I am blessed and thankful. No more dwelling.

Incomplete - Alanis Morissette (live video in link)

One day I'll find relief
I'll be arrived and I'll be a friend to my friends who know how to be friends

One day I'll be at peace
I’ll be enlightened and I'll be married with children and maybe adopt

One day I will be healed
I will gather my wounds forge the end of tragic comedy

I have been running so sweaty my whole life
Urgent for a finish line
And I have been missing the rapture this whole time
Of being forever incomplete

One day, my mind will retreat, and I'll know god and I'll be constantly one with her night dusk and day
One day I'll be secure, like the women I see on their 30th anniversaries

I have been running so sweaty my whole life
Urgent for a finish line
And I have been missing the rapture this whole time
Of being forever incomplete

Ever unfolding
Ever expanding
Ever adventurous and torturous
But never done

One day, I will speak freely
I'll be less afraid
And measured outside of my poems and lyrics and art
One day I will be faith-filled
I'll be trusting and spacious authentic and grounded and whole

I have been running so sweaty my whole life
Urgent for a finish line
And I have been missing the rapture this whole time
Of being forever incomplete

3 comments:

Sean Newbury said...

Were I there I'd be giving you one helluva bear hug... but since I cant, this will have to do...

(,,,)("")("")(,,,)

Johnny said...

Thanks Shawn. *hugs back*

Johnny said...

I just watched the video for "Incomplete" again, and I really have to say, though I am a tremendous fan, Alanis is a far better singer with the benefit of full production. Which is my way of sincerely recommending the actual album version, which is produced by Guy Sigsworth whose musical genius I just-about-worship. The album version of "Incomplete" is lush, melodic and rife with compelling emotional accompaniment. That whole frickin' album is an Alanis opus in my humble opinion. (Guy Sigsworth produced the whole effin' thing.)