Hide The Mess

I'm just a fat chick with a herpes outbreak

I got up this morning, went to the gym, spent 40 minutes on the Stepmill, did 50 crunches, and sat in the sauna for 10 min - because sweat is goooddddd. At home, I got on the scale and when I looked down at the numbers that's when my rapid descent into self loathing began. It culminated with standing in my closet, crying very big, sad tears - not angry, I hate myself tears but sad ones -  the kind followed by big, deep breaths of desperation - because I am fat and everything is too small (it IS NOT but rationale and common sense decided to go have margaritas somewhere - bitches!).
The crying, of course, fucked up my freshly applied mascara, which meant I had to completely re-apply my make up because smeared mascara ruins everything - and to add insult to injury - another fever blister (that's TWO in the last three motherfucking weeks) which is not helping the one little teeny, tiny, molecule of self esteem I'm performing CPR on AT ALL.
More than once I picked up the phone to call the office and take a sick day. But I'm not sick. I'm just a fat chick with a herpes outbreak (that's going in my personal ad FER SURE). I'm also having a wardrobe crisis and while technically, those are all symptoms of some sickness it's not reeeaaalllyyyy the kind of sickness Sick Days were invented for. THAT kind of sickness is what Medical Leave of Absence For Psychiatric Care was invented for.
I did make it to the office. I was late, but I was there. Which, I guess, was half the battle. So yea me! I won. But then I lost the other half of the battle when I walked into my bosses office later in the afternoon and said simply, "I need to go home."  She's leaving for vacation tomorrow and the last thing she wants is sick people around her, and so she just assumed that's why I wanted to go home, because I was sick. And I didn't correct her, because she was shooing me out of her office - sending me on my way, telling me to feel better -  and I know I should have corrected her and said "oh, I'm not physically ill, but I am emotionally and mentally OUT OF MY FRIGGIN' MIND" - but I didn't. Because I just wanted to go home, sink down into my new recliner, watch stupid, mind numbing TV and occasionally remind myself that tomorrow I'll feel better. Even if I'm not sure I believe it. Of all the lies I tell myself, it's that one I want to believe. So - tomorrow, I'll feel better. Hopefully.

Pointless Rambling

I have this reckless feeling, like I want to do something self destructive. No. Not the 'You should get ready for my funeral' destructive, although that thought is like a poison inside my brain and I'm startled at how quickly I can find that weak spot in myself, that old familiar thought process that has worn a groove somewhere inside me that might never go away.  The little thought that seeps in when I've hit a wall, one that I seem to hit over and over and over and I start to think in fast forward and all I see is more of the same for the next thirty or forty years and the idea of that just makes me want to lie down and give up a little bit ... but that's a whole different thing and I'm not actually talking about that kind of self destruction, even though I know this reckless feeling is a slippery slope into that place, and giving into it doesn't always land me there, but it can, and it has and I'm not foolish enough (anymore) to think that it won't. Sometimes I can skate by without sliding down into that mess and  other times ... not so much .. And the price is pretty high and I know I'm talking in all these crazy metaphors and it's all circular and not very coherent but that's how it is inside my head sometimes. Crazy, circular metaphors. And it was one teeny, tiny thing that nudged me into this place, the hint of something really and yet it's like I want to do something that makes me feel like shit, that I know I'd hate myself for because I've done it, and it always leads there, to the self hating place, like I need to justify the self loathing that exists right under the surface by doing something reckless and shitty instead of just admitting that I hate myself just in general, on speck, out of habit, because I have for so long,  or whatever other bullshit I say to myself that I realize is just bullshit and the minute I write that down, about hating myself, I want to counter it with the no I really don't, that's total shit do not listen to me I am talking out my ass defense. And the fucked up part is both of those things are true. I hate myself. No I don't. Yes I do, no wait, I don't ... blah blah fucking blah. It is a conversation I grow so very tired of having with myself. I mean, holy fuck, I shouldn't have to talk myself out of hating myself, like seriously, what the fuck is that even about? I don't know that I even care anymore what it's about, I'm just tired of doing all of this shit over and over and yeah yeah when I'm tired enough I'll quit doing this shit and get out of this little hole I'm in and knock off the whining and the woe is me and the self hatred and fucking move already instead of just sitting down in all this shit and then bitching about how I'm sitting in shit when I'm the one who sat down in the first place damn place  so get the fuck up already and go. And I realize that no one knows what that fuck I'm talking about and that this is all random and shit, but whatever, sometimes it's just a damn blog and I'm just vomiting up my emotional shit that isn't compelling or interesting or whatever, and it doesn't matter what the back story is  because none of that shit really matters. It's all just drama and heartbreak and Bonnie Raitt singing I Can't Make You Love Me nineteen year old girl nonsense and ... whatever, it's not even the point really. There isn't one.

Changing Places

My friend Shumpy was pontificating on his website about the various types of friends and it got me thinking, which is scary! But in a strange parallel sort of way, I’ve been dealing with this very thing.  I think most people have different kinds of friends, different categories people fall into.  There are work friends who, obviously, share an employer with you and a meal or happy hour from time to time. There are old friends, who  you’ve known for years but only see or talk to once and a while. There are good friends, who are always invited to birthday parties, always make the cut for people you’d want to visit you in jail and will always make the trip to the bathroom with you when you’ve had too much to drink.  There are best friends, the ones who bail you out of jail, (I don’t know why I have a jail theme here) drive you to the doctor to have THAT checked out, and keep all of your secrets locked in the vault and regardless of how horrible those secrets are, they still love you and think you are cool in your own way.  There are friends who are like family, and they have all the qualities of a best friend but, like, to the tenth power. They join you at family functions when the thought of facing all those fucked up people on your own is too scary, they sometimes refer to your parents as Mom and Dad, and they can come up with the most awesome reasons why you can’t stay too long at that family birthday party.  Sometimes people move around, they stop being coworkers and become good friends, or are no longer good friends but old friends and that’s just sort of the nature of things. No one really stays in one place, at least, that’s sort of been my experience. Recently, my place in someone’s life got shifted and while in the past that kind of thing has  been a natural, gradual shift …  this felt like a demotion.  And I’ve been demoted before, it sucks. And so did this.  But for whatever reason I’ve been moved around, and I’ve been  trying to  adjust to the new place I’ve been assigned.  But it has been less than enjoyable. I don’t know if I’ve ever deliberately moved someone around or if they’ve felt it so acutely, but I can say it’s been an eye opening experience.  The most frustrating part was feeling suddenly cut off. Knowing that something had changed or shifted but whenever I asked  I was dismissed and assured that no, nothing’s changed.  When the truth of the matter is,  there was something changing, there was a space and distance where one had not existed before and even though in hindsight they claim it was a subconscious thing, it still stings a little bit.  Not like being rejected stings,  I’m not being rejected, but I am being asked, (nicely, I might add) to please move over here with these people that are kept at arms length. It’s an adjustment on my part, one that I’m not unwilling to make,  because I happen to still like this person, but one that has taken the wind out of my sails a little bit.  The hard truth might  be that I was in the unfortunate position of thinking I was better friends with someone than they were with me and it’s just taken me this long to figure it out. I’ve had it happen to me in the reverse, where someone assumes a friendliness with me that is not really reciprocated, or there’s an imbalance of sorts in regards to how important the friendship is, and it’s a delicate and tricky thing to maintain but eventually it evens out. Maybe the whole time I thought we were  good friends, we weren't. Which just feels foolish when I think about it, and sort of makes me want to run away or disappear inside myself because how could I have NOT picked up on that? How could I have been so silly to think that I shared a kinship with someone who did not feel the same? It's like finding out the person you're in love with has never really been in love with you. It's the same song, just a different tune and the volume is lower. 
Things will even out, and I'll get used to my new place, I just don't much care for the change, and if my choices are this or nothing, well, it might seem pathetic, but I'll take this. Because it's better than nothing. God. Just writing that makes me feel like a loser. But there are some people where the crumbs of friendship will just have to be enough.