Still Beating

I know I should probably be in a good mood right now. I feel like I have this obligation to be okay for people all the time. Mostly because I feel like the people I care most about see me at my saddest anyways. I don't want them to think I am sad all the time.

But I have to be honest, this week-end was pretty lonely. Almost everyone I know and love was either out of town or angry at me, (not true Jen and Jane were here, but quite literally, it felt it was just the three of us in the city with some construction workers). I felt a little bummed out anyways, so maybe sitting at home working and watching 6 feet under was the right thing to do.

Anyways, this morning I was listening my way through the two new Josh Ritter albums I downloaded (which I swear to G-d I will now go back and pay for on iTunes once I have a cheque in my hands.) and this song came on called "Still Beating" and it basically described how I have been feeling since this summer went all out of whack. I think that was about when Dylan died. I haven't really felt like I got my game on since then.

My therapist said it's perfectly normal that I should feel sad, that sometimes the events in our lives can be saddening. The first time she said it, I was really shocked. Like it was a real privilege. "Could it really be okay to be sad? Are there really entire periods in my life, where sadness is a normal response to circumstances?" The thing is I never want to be sad, I always struggle against it, making stuff up to fool myself into thinking sadness is something else. Like, rage or revenge or not caring. Anything to keep from admitting that what's really happening is that I am sad, and cannot stop myself from being so.

Mike and I were talking about this the other day, that I am trying to admit when I am sad instead of pretending it is something else, in the hopes that sadness will stop scaring me so much, and then it can stop controlling my life, and then maybe just maybe I can stop feeling blue so easily and so often. (Goal of therapy stated explicitly.) So this week-end I did it, I knew in my heart I was sad, and I just kept doing my thing, so I guess it worked. I tried to keep any angry, paranoid or vengeful thoughts to a minimum and I tried to not dwell on things too much, I mean sure I pondered, but I didn't lie on the couch wondering what I did to deserve the life I have. Okay it's not true I did call Maya and have this kind of tortured conversation that left me feeling bad for having taken up so much of her time. That's another goal of therapy, stop taking up so much of your friends time with your worries, if I learn that they will pass, then maybe they will also scare me less. I have to admit I think that one is going slow ;)

Maybe the only license I gave myself was to cry whenever something happened on 6 feet under that moved me. Finally last night, while mining the depths of my disappointment with how this summer is turning out, (episodes 6 + 7 of season 3 natch) I realized that next summer and fuck, even next month is going to be totally different. I swear to god, I am just not the kind of person who thinks like that without someone holding my hand and providing some kind of "guidebook to happy thoughts" complete with brightly painted signposts. That thought: "this will all be different soon" came to me all by myself. It doesn't sound like much of a triumph but trust me, for a resigned pessimist and (secretly) chronically sad person, cheering myself up is a victory of astronomical proportions.

I am beginning to believe, as Ned once told me, that if if I truly just 'lean into it', I should be okay.

And more for me, then anyone else, here are the lyrics to Still Beating:

I know the dog days of the summer
Have you ten-to-one out-numbered
Seems like everybody up and left and they're not coming back
The shadow that you're standing on's still here sometimes that's all that you can ask
And your heart's still beating

You're not the fastest draw in town now
How many times you been shot down now?
Seems like everybody else could see the things you never did
But if you could yourself you'd probably never have made it through the things you did
With your heart still beating

I know the dog days of the summer Have you ten-to-one out-numbered
It seems like everybody else saw trouble sneaking up behind
Left you half dead in the street but that just means you're half alive
And your heart's still beating

Also this post is for my mother. This week-end was the anniversary of her death and for some fucking reason that always creeps up on me, and I remember after the fact. There's a mystery there too, the mystery of why I have forgotten the meaning of this week-end, every week-end, for the past 4 years. At least now I have reason number 17 that this week-end felt crummy. Can you put these things in the iCal?

Okay, just to be 100% clear. I only just realized this morning that this week-end was the anniversary of Mom's death. So no-one but no-one has to feel any weird guilt or discomfort about anything. Not one person.