Acting Hard's Been Tough

How do you escape when you can't afford a real escape? 

Tonight I'm doing it by playing my favorite song on a loop with headphones on, the volume set to levels that any Dr. would scold me for.  Sure, I'm probably accelerating my journey to hearing loss road, but right now, it's the only place I can go to get away.

My mind is a crowded place.  I swear I race from one extreme to another and another all within an hour sometimes.  I spent so much time laughing today, which felt amazing.  I was linked to a couple of websites that just got me, and it was nice.  Lots of things made me laugh in the little moments today.  So you'd think that would make today a pretty good day, right?

Somehow, still no.  A day 3/4 full of laughter but wrapped up with a bow of crying for ten minutes suddenly feels so much darker than it did before.  Why do the few negative minutes outweigh the handfuls of good ones? 

I was angry today, too.  Really, frighteningly angry.  The kind where I needed an outlet so desperately that I wrote it all down, and there were lots of curse words, lots of bold proclamations, with an overall tone of "screw it all".  Yes, it was therapeutic.  Of course, it was way over the top.  I figure that's okay, though, as it was just for me, and it's better to have that out of my mind than racing around in there.

For right now, the music is the escape.  Maybe sleeping with the windows open.  Getting through friday to earn my weekend.  Rest assured that while there will be some down time, this will NOT be a repeat of last weekend.  I don't think I need a weekend that quiet again for a very long time!  However, definitely time to start easing my way back into the world.

Things may be frustrating me right now, but I was thinking earlier, in the aftermath of my anger attack, that maybe this is just part of the process.  My mom pointed out to me not too long ago that losing a relationship can trigger a cycle not unlike the 5 stages of grief.  This is pretty true.

I'm crossing my fingers that this is that middle time, where you feel like you're moving backwards instead of forward, and like the progress you've made is at risk.  You feel like you may not be able to make your way through this, and you want to just give in to the lethargy. But maybe this is just a test before the turning point.  Maybe. 

All I can do is hope for a bit of a clearing ahead.  Maybe it lurks on the horizon for tomorrow, or this weekend. 

Time to begin the complicated night ending rituals of my home, letting Mercy out, feeding the cats, covering the couches, taking the vitamins, all that jazz.  Hopefully ten minutes from now I'll be tucked into bed with a little breeze coming in through the window, and a mind winding down for the day. 

Acting hard's been tough, or so say the lyrics in one of my favorite songs to listen to at perilous volumes (though not the one mentioned before).  I hope that eventually one day the pretense of acting okay will transition back into legitimately being okay.  Work in progress, I suppose. 

Good night!