little steps

Tomorrow I'm going to pretend to be a normal human being for a while.

Tomorrow, for the first time in days, I'll take off the sweats that I've been sleeping in for days, put on shoes, and leave the house (to go to the doctor, to go on a field trip with Tessa). I will pick up my new prescription for magic pills (Lexapro). I will be there for Tessa, to play with her. I will go to bed early.

I feel like a totally different person than I did a few days ago. I don't know what to think of the changes.

Ryan has utterly stepped up and has waited on me hand and foot, and I feel gratitude and peace about this. I think it's pretty scary to see your wife totally lose it: sorry, honey. The cat has laid under the covers (he goes under by himself!) by my leg, not moving, for 12 hours at a time, just being close to me. Shep sits by me and whimpers. The animals know that something is up and it hasn't been good.

Tessa, on the other hand, has been delighting in bringing me small treasures (my bedside table is filled with things from her room) and telling me stories and being excited about her playdates with friends, which have been many in the past couple days (thank you thank you). Today we told her that it's her day for show and tell tomorrow and she's over the moon with excitement. (The decided upon items: Special Blanket and Special Bear, the items she has slept with since babyhood. Special Bear is so worn that you can no longer tell that he used to be a warm winter white, and he's no longer fuzzy...but he's very special.) Tomorrow is a field trip to Discovery Park to look at spiders and she's convinced that she'll find the first spiders and that it's going to be magical. I'm going to try to attend, too.

I'm looking deep, deep inside. It's not pretty. It's not fun to acknowledge my fear, my powerlessness, my anger. It's not fun to see how I have contributed to my own problems. It's not fair to see that even when I did everything perfectly sometimes things went very, very wrong. It's not fun to look at how much awful stuff I've had to endure over the past two years, and to acknowledge that there were no lessons or positives out of those experiences.

It's not fun to put up a "STAY OUT!" sign that has a note under it, "PollyAnna, this means YOU!" because I'm so mad at PollyAnna. Or maybe at myself because I am she. Or not. But anyway, I'm mad, and I don't welcome that kind of optimism back in my life because the let-down is NOT WORTH IT.

But I also know that I need to be an optimist, I just need a new way for it.

I'm returning my Halloween costume, by the way. I was going to be WonderWoman to show my alter-ego but I've decided I'm NOT WonderWoman and so it doesn't fit. I have other ideas now...stay tuned to see.

My voice is coming back.

I don't know how much I can explain outside of the blog...it's all pretty raw, unappetizing, scary stuff, and I don't think I'm ready yet. Thank you for understanding.

What a mess, though. I never saw it coming and now it seems so obvious.

I can't wait to get my hands on my new pills.