chandrarueff1961-yasmb

I am awake at least an hour before the alarm goes off. Sometimes 3 hours. And I can’t go back to sleep. I can’t turn off my brain. I have so much to do, I have so much to do, I have so much to do, I have too much to do. I need a plan. Ugh. A plan.

Eventually, I remember that every day starts with breakfast and coffee. That’s what finally gets me to throw off the covers. Onto the dog. So she’ll get out of bed just in case I decide to make the bed. I have a low-maintenance bed; an oversized boho quilt that I just tossed onto the dog right along with the top sheet. I grab both and pull them over the pillows. Bam! The bed’s made. On a good day, I might chase down the throw pillows that go with the quilt, but that’s strictly optional and I usually don’t.

For an instant, I savor that victory. Then I prop my butt back on it and carefully sweep the pile of meds off the nightstand, where I left them the night before, into my hand (carefully, because if I have to get on my hands and knees to find one of the little shits it will derail the entire rest of my day). I toss them into my mouth, en masse, and slug them down with a big drink of water out of my bedside canister, the one that is for all the world like a sippy cup, but even better because it has a self-contained straw, so no water on my chest when I get a drink during the night. Whatever. I chew my bariatric vitamin and congratulate myself on my first act of self-care for the day. Then I realize that I need to shower and all the stuff to be presentable to the rest of the world. It just seems like a monumental task, this getting ready for the rest of the day.

It’s all just too much, so, having just left the comfort of my bed, I slide my feet into the real shearling slippers that I paid way too much money for (but at moments like this, they’re worth it). I left them by the nightstand when I went to bed so that I wouldn’t have to go hunting for them. Hopefully I didn’t kick them under the bed during one of my nocturnal trips to the bathroom, because if I have to get on my hands and knees to retrieve them, it’s going to wreck the rest of my day. If it’s cold, I take the huge, soft, comfy robe that I spent way too much money for (but it’s priceless at moments like this) off the hook next to the nightstand and leisurely wrap it around my shoulders and settle into it. So, I got out of the bed to make the bed and then sat on the made bed to cover myself with cushy things that make me feel like I never really got up from the bed. I hope you’re following me, because I haven’t really done a damn thing yet except sit up. I’ve just written 4 paragraphs of stuff to get to the point where I’m sitting up. On a made bed with a virtual bed wrapped around me and now fully medicated.

But it’s a big deal, this getting up out of bed. Especially if I actually made the bed on the way, because if I did make the bed, I’m 10 times less likely to go back to bed.

I feel like a slug, and in the privacy of my home, I allow my posture to go all to hell and shuffle around like an old lady. Okay, well, I am an old lady, but out in the world, I don’t go around like that. Then there’s the bathroom, into which the dog naturally follows me. That done, the kitchen seems miles away (my house is 1000 sf at best), but I grudgingly manage the distance. The dog gets fresh water and breakfast (with fresh food topper over kibble – the fresh topper stuff costs too much but it makes her happy and healthy and makes me feel like a good dog owner), so that I can have my breakfast and coffee in peace. If I’m lucky, she’ll eat her breakfast and ask to go out (a matter of opening the door to the backyard), while I’m still on my feet. So coffee and a granola bar if I’m still feeling like a slug, fruit and yogurt/cottage cheese most times, or maybe a protein smoothie if I’m really ambitious. I convince the dog to go out if she hasn’t already asked.

The coffee mug and the bowl and spoon or smoothie cup (if there is a bowl and spoon or cup involved) usually come right out of the dishwasher, where clean dishes have been sitting while rinsed-but-not-so-clean dishes have been hanging out in the sink for, well, 2 or 3 days. The dining room table is not a dining room table. It is the depository for mail, packages, and whatever paper I’ve deemed to be important enough not to leave somewhere where I might lose it. So it gets lost on the dining room table. I randomly remember that my voter registration card (or whatever the important piece of paper of the day is) is somewhere on that table. Damn. That is going to bug me all day long.

I take my breakfast and coffee and the modern version of the newspaper, my cell phone, to the couch. I carefully set my cup of coffee on a coaster on the end table (carefully, because spilling my coffee on that damn table will piss me off for the rest of the day). I hold the bowl or the cup in one hand, sit the phone in my lap, and alternate scrolling with taking sips of coffee. No social media – why would anyone start their day with that? I check out the weather (always the weather first). Depression hits when the weather is supposed to be nice. Nice weather means the world is going to expect me to be shiny and happy, and that’s just hard work. I actually like rain, snow, and ice because then I have an excuse to be me with depression, which is easy, and if there are thunderstorms I can just fold under my PTSD and everybody will get it because, after all, I really was struck by lightning 30 years ago.

If thunderstorms are forecast, I plan the rest of my day around them. I take a perverse pleasure in watching a thunderstorm roll in, but I won’t even stick my big toe out of the door if there’s lightning and thunder. Or go close to electric appliances. Or use anything involving plumbing. Wouldn’t it suck to be struck by lightning through the plumbing while you’re sitting on the toilet? It happens. I know way too much about lightning. Freaky stuff. No thunderstorms? Fine, as long as it’s not nice weather.

A bark. Of course she didn’t come back until after I sat down (She’s a dog, she’s a dog, she’s a dog – my refrain when I get irritated with her). I put down the phone next to the coffee, carefully, and slog to the door to let the dog in. I read the news, mostly politics (I am a politics nerd – there’s always something depressing about politics, so me with depression feeds on it), and sports (if I care about the sports at the time). I take my sweet time with breakfast. It’s the only meal that I savor, as simple as it is. My coffee will be cold by the time I’m finishing it, but I like it just as much that way anyway. It’s not worth rushing it to make sure that it’s hot all the way to the last drop.

Breakfast is always over too soon. It’s all downhill from there. I slowly get up, creaky knee and all, and shuffle into the kitchen. I carefully rinse my mug and my bowl/cup and spoon if one was required and leave them in the sink, rinsed-but-not-so-clean. I wash the dog bowl manually because there’s only one dog bowl. Randomly, it occurs to me that there’s just one me in the house just like there’s just one dog in the house, so why do I need more than one mug, bowl, plate, cup, or spoon, for any given meal? I mean, I could conceivably throw every single dog bowl and me dish/silverware/cookware (cookware is rare because I really hate cooking unless it’s in a crockpot and then who wants to wash the crockpot?) into the dishwasher and run it every night and then I wouldn’t have to feel crappy about the rinsed-but-not-so-clean dishes in the sink. But it seems wasteful, all that hot water and electricity and a detergent pod every single day. I have to be stingy like that to afford those real shearling slippers, the virtual bed that I call a robe, and the fresh dog food.

I’m on my 12th paragraph, and I haven’t even flossed my teeth yet. I feel dirty, dull, empty, tired, hopeless, and utterly unprepared to commence the day, no matter what the weather is going to do. This is me with depression. Remember, I’m not supposed to define myself by my mental illness. But I have to admit that it is my constant companion. A very needy companion. A very selfish companion that drags me right down with it.

Today I’m going to find not only my voter registration card, but also something very beautiful to write about just so I can use the wonder of it to beat down on my depression for a little while.