One of the worst things about depression is the feeling that you’re not normal.

You can’t do as much as everyone else, and you don’t understand why.  You get tired.  You can’t focus.  You’re easily overwhelmed.  You beat yourself up for being so lazy and immature.

You want, more than anything, to be like everyone else.

I’ve experienced normal.  I know what it’s like to work when the sun is up and sleep when everyone else sleeps.  I’ve made it to dinner without needing a nap.  I’ve lived normal, and it is wonderful.  Few things in life have left me quite as euphoric as normal.

And then the weariness begins to seep back in.

I find myself needing a nap and losing two to three hours in an afternoon.  I lie awake at two in the morning, unable to stop my brain from whirring.  I make lists and then remake them in an attempt to make up for the things I just couldn’t get done.  I lose myself for hours in mindless distractions and the very idea of completing even the most simple tasks becomes both a crushing weight and muddling fog.

No, I plead with the darkness.  No.  I’m fixed now.  No.

I have been clinging to normal for the last weeks, quietly, so as not to draw attention to my defect.  I don’t know how to describe this internal fight to hold on to normal, except to say that is a delicate balancing act between refusing to acknowledge the monster that’s trying to break in and firing whatever tiny weapons you have at your disposal.  Sleep when you’re tired to avoid fatigue.  Lower your expectations.  Drink more water today.

Half of you is holding on while the other half is trying not to get swallowed up, and you’re cheeks are sore from the forced smile that says I. am. normal.

I’ve already changed medications.  Twice.  I have been depressed, not depressed, and depressed again.  If I am already broken again, then it is laziness and personality flaws and not chemical imbalances.  It is my fault, then, and not something to be accepted and dealt with.

I cannot be depressed again.

*ping*

You either snap or let go.

I let go.

Clean slate.  Restart.  Reboot.

1. Follow up appointment with the doctor to discuss timing of doses, because I take two pills a day instead of one in order to save $100 a month.  I resolve to set the alarm on my phone every. single. day. to ensure I’m taking my medication at the right time.
2. Stop eating whatever, whenever.  Pretty good is not good enough.  Six balanced meals a day, just like I did for 12 weeks.  Set another alarm on my phone to ensure I’m having that mid-morning snack I’ve been skipping.
3. Move my ass.  Alternate between morning cardio and morning strength training, even if I only have time for push ups, sits ups and other freebie calisthenics in my living room.
4. Step away from the computer.  After an hour of writing, find something else to do for a few minutes.  Walk around the block, make the bed, meditate or call my husband to say hello.  Anything that unplugs the brain from the matrix.

A few days pass without a nap, and the darkness slinks back into the closet.

This is not normal.

I know that. I know that there are people, lots of people, who don’t need to do a perfect dance with medication, food, exercise and rest.  They don’t have to think about how they’re treating their bodies or their minds, and both just do what they are supposed to do.  I am in awe of these people and their low maintenance bodies and I will probably always be jealous of the freedom they have, much like my envy of people who can smoke when they drink without becoming slaves to an addiction.

But I have to accept that I can’t function that way.

My body and brain are not, for whatever reason, that kind of normal.  This is my normal. And every time I try to pretend that isn’t the case, I will slip down the rabbit hole.

This is what my depression looks like.  It is real and constant and bigger than a pill.  But it is, thank God, manageable – as long as I can accept it.  You can’t manage what you’re trying to ignore.

This is my normal.

This is my acceptance.

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Posted in Personal - Growth and Things I'm Trying To Learn Tagged: balance, balancing act, body, britt, chemical imbalances, darkness, depression, exercise, fatigue, food, living, personal, personality flaws | 36 Comments »

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Step 1 - Sit down at the end of the month and figure out where every dollar will go in the next month.

Step 2 – Make a list of all of the expenses you can pay for with cash.  Groceries, gas, allowances, all discretionary spending basically.  Do this because you realized in New York City how much less you spend if you’re looking at a stack of bills and know this. is. it.  Apparently knowing a debit card is attached to a real live bank account is not as sobering as looking at a limited amount of money, especially when it’s time to decide if this shirt is really worth $20 to you.

Step 3 - Make an envelope for each type of expense you’ve designated.

For Example:

Food Envelope

Step 4 - Put every dollar you have into one of these envelopes.  This way, you have planned for how you’ll spend your money in the coming weeks instead of going “well, shit, where did that money go?”

Step 5 - Put all envelopes you don’t need at the moment in your safe, because, well – it’s every dollar you have.

Step 6 - Lock safe.  Obviously.

Step 7 - Give one key to your husband and keep one for yourself.

Step 8 - Kiss your husband goodbye for the day.

Step 9 - Attempt to retrieve envelope and money from safe later.

Step 10 - Break off key in lock.

Shit.

Posted in Dignity Is Overrated - Funny and Embarrassing Stories Tagged: envelopes, how to, how to save more money, money, vacation | 30 Comments »

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What a difference a week makes.

Last weekend I was at parenting rock bottom.  At least, it felt like rock bottom at the time, except that term suggests a one time hit before climbing your way back up.  But parenting isn’t like that, is it?  Parenting is an ongoing journey with peaks and valleys and rolling hills that make your stomach lurch, sometimes from fear and sometimes from mind-blowing joy.  Last week was one of those valleys that makes you forget about the fluid nature of a journey; I was convinced this was the endgame and I had lost.

And then a few people took the time to email me and tell me what 10 and 11 and this age for boys is often like.  Some of the emails were from the perspective of having boys of this age in their homes right now, some from the perspective of having those memories fresh.  Others were from the perspective of having been boys of that age.  They all had one thing in common: perspective I needed.

The village I’m raising my children in right now is largely made up of people without children or people with children who are Emma’s age or younger.  This is, I think, one of the consequences no one tells you about of having babies when you’re barely old enough to vote.  You will have to do everything first. And here’s the thing about all of the parents around me being parents of children who are Emma’s age or younger:

It’s no coincidence that we decided to have a second child when Devin was about that age.

Children who are 3,4 and 5 years old are freaking adorable.  They are constantly coming up with new ways to express their love for you, and the ways they mimic adults are not yet rude or sarcastic or disrespectful.  When a 5 year old girl says, “I am making chocolate milk, Mommy” with an air of duh - it’s cute.  When a 10 year old boy says it?  The air of duh has graduated to full on you’re an idiot and cute has long ago fallen by the wayside.

The force with which a 3, 4 or 5 year old child can push a boundary is downright laughable compared to what a boy twice more than twice that age will apply to untested limits.

But I forget that.  It’s not what I see on a regular basis.  It’s not the perspective I use when trying to figure out if I’m a complete and total failure as a parent.  But with a little help from the Internet, I took a stepped back and remembered all the times in recent memory that I had seen Devin among his peers.  I compared, as best I could, apples to apples, and was relieved to find that mine was not, in fact, riddle with the worms of my incompetence.

(Truth be told, the kid’s a shining State Fair Blue Ribbon winner in most barrels.)

That being said, I certainly don’t want to parent my child by comparing him to other individuals – but I was doing it to an extent anyway.  At least making fair comparisons gave me a more accurate picture of what, exactly, has been going on.

And what has been going on?

He’s 10, basically.  Quickly rounding the bend to 11, even.  And he’s spent the last couple of months with his grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins, instead of parents who will ground his ass for getting out of line.  And so his mouth and his attitude were running amok, basically, with complete disregard for any boundaries of common freaking sense.

And then Mom and Dad had the come to Jesus meltdown.

Moms and dads, you know the one.

And, completely by coincidence, we shut the cable off at about the same time.

And, the Internet reminded me that I wasn’t abnormally bad at this.

And boy… what a difference a week makes.

Posted in Kids and Parenting - Real Mommy Blogging Tagged: boundaries, children, devin, mom, parenting, parents, perspective, the Internet | 22 Comments »

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I made the mistake of reading blogs this morning before getting to work.  Worse than that, I made the mistake of reading comments on blogs.

It took exactly two minutes before I stumbled on the first Everyone But Us Is An Idiot sentiment of the day.

And just like that, I’m ticked off and feeling the urge to defend 95% of humanity.  Or perhaps it’s less about defending humanity and more about protecting my sphere of influence from the unexpected negativity.  Unexpected, because I do tend to be an idiot when it comes to what to expect from the Internet, clearly.

Of course, there is no better place to defend 95% of humanity and bitch about your infected sphere of influence than Twitter.

Let us ignore the hypocrisy for just a moment, because I want to go on record as saying:

Most people are not idiots.

Neither are most people less sensitive than you, more intolerant than you, or less willing to work than you.

Are there idiots in this world?  Probably, yes.  Absolutely, even.

Are there mean people in this world?  Sadly, yes.

But the vast majority of the people on this planet are more similar to you than they are different.

They love someone.  They are afraid of something.  They laugh and have made someone else in this world laugh.  They want something that they do not currently have, whether that’s a new car or another child or a garden that yields just a few more tomatoes before the end of the growing season.

They have made someone else cry.  They have made someone angry.  They have done something at some point that they are not proud of having done.  They have lost someone they love, either through death or disagreement or something as simple as distance.

Whether man, woman, or child, we have all loved, lost, tried, failed and succeeded.  We all know pain and joy.

Why do we forget that?

Why, when we sit down to write a comment on a blog or have a chat with our neighbors, are we so quick to say things like “sadly, most people <insert behavior that we are above here>…”?  Perhaps it’s because I struggle to keep my own self esteem at barely healthy levels, but I cannot wrap my head around the mathematical logistics that would be required to make these comments even remotely true.

If most people are idiots/bigots/lazy/uneducated/insensitive/ignorant/insert current complaint here, and you are clearly not – hence your authority to offer this commentary – than you… what?  Won the genetic fucking lottery?  You – and presumably the person you are commiserating with – managed to find yourself in the tiny percentage of people who are not idiots/bigots/lazy/uneducated/insensitive/ignorant/insert current complaint here.  How is it possible that you got that lucky?  And you managed to find someone else who belonged to that tiny percentage as well!

Just…. no.

Most people are no more or less of an idiot than you are.  Than I am.

Again, I’m not sure why it bothers me so much when I stumble upon this arrogance.  After all, if the ideas I’ve presented here are true, I have more in common with these judgmental pricks than I would like to admit.  Perhaps I just forget that.  Or maybe it’s being reminded of that arrogance and our tendencies for similarity that causes my knee to jerk.  If you announce that most people are not as blah blah blah as you and I believe that most people are basically the same, than I am also not as blah blah blah as you or part of an elite and superior group – and I’m not comfortable with either of those options.

I am either a judgmental prick, as this post would indicate, or I am less than, as I assume judgmental statements cast towards the ambiguous most other people insinuate.

Hmmm.

Maybe someone just needs to remind judgmental pricks once in a while that most people are pretty much the same as everyone else.  They laugh, they cry, they love, they hate.  They yearn and mourn and doubt.

And sometimes, they act like judgmental pricks.

Posted in Personal - Growth and Things I'm Trying To Learn Tagged: bitching, commentary, hypocrisy, internet, judgment, negativity, self esteem, the Internet, twitter | 45 Comments »

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Not a moleskine

I decided I needed a notebook. After all, real writers use notebooks to jot down their thoughts.  I’m suddenly having more ideas than I can contain in a blog, and many of them come to me at 11:30 at night when I’m trying to fall asleep.

Mainly I got tired of keep track of my notes on the notepad app on my iPhone, especially after my daughter turned three months worth of post ideas into rghaghajdlfdiuuyyghhka8**emmahfjjdfkjfjafd^^^^^.

I’m sorry, not my daughter.  Some other iPhone fascinated creature that no one sees.

I love writer’s notebooks and journals.  I think the main reason writers carry notebooks around is because we love the way they look.  We make up ideas and stories and sentences just so we have a valid excuse to carry around tiny pieces of paper bound in artistic jackets, jackets that say I’m a serious writer or I’m into astrology.  If it wasn’t for the street cred we get from the beautiful – or smartly understanded – binding, we’d just shove miniature steno pads into our purses like Newspaper Men in the movies.

The last journal I bought resembled a renaissance fair tapestry you’d find hanging on a 1990s wannabe hippie’s dorm wall.  I don’t remember any of the symbols that were supposed to be representative of – well, something I’m sure, but I remember the sun and the stars.  I could have pulled this notebook out and started using it.  I know I never filled it.  But I haven’t written in it since just after Devin was born and I started writing in it the summer before I went to college.  That’s 18 months of angst-ridden promiscuity that no one wants to reread.

But still, I wanted a notebook.

Of course, I just declared a shopping moratorium on unnecessary items.  I mean, a real writer’s notebook only costs about $12, but that’s $12 I’d vowed not to spend.

So instead of a fancy moleskin wrapped in soft black, I’m carrying around a free notebook I got at BlogHer with a Sears and Kmart logo stamped on the red plastic cover.  I’ve also scattered pink post-it style grocery list length notebooks sponsored by RetailMeNot around the house – by the bed, on the desk.

And it’s a very small thing and a less than glamorous alternative to the pretty diaries I imagined for myself when I decided I had to start carrying real pen and paper with me everywhere – but it’s $12 I saved.  More importantly, I’m actually putting these scraps of donated trees to good use instead of letting them overflow in my junk drawer until I can no longer open and close it when I need to find batteries.

It’s a very small thing, but it’s a symbolic gesture for me that represents a commitment to something bigger.  It’s follow through.  It’s sticking to my guns in the face of just $12, because just sits at the precipice of that very slippery slope.  But I did not slip, or lean, or roll down that hill.  I dug through a bag of free stuff that I’d saved from a recent conference, and stayed rooted on level ground.

It’s just $12.  It’s just a notebook.  But it’s moving closer to the goal.

Plus – we canceled the cable.

Posted in Miss Britt - stories, memes and random facts about me Tagged: books, commitment, financial goals, free stuff, goal, not buying, not spending, saving money, shopping, shopping ban, swag, travel planning | 28 Comments »

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