Darkness Falls

I think I've been depressed all my life.

I remember being 12 years old and not wanting to play with my friends.  I enjoyed my solitude more.  Having fun with my friends just didn't seem like something that I deserved.  I preferred to stay in my room and daydream of being the girlfriend of a famous singer or actor.  Yeah, Leo.  Yep Nick Carter.  Yes, please Joey McIntyre.

I'd write poetry about love and desire.  Things that I longed for.  I wrote stories about tragedy and addiction, things that were truly beyond me.  I felt ignored in real life, so I made up these fantasies.  I lived a whole other life inside my head.  And I was never me.  I was always who I wanted to be.  Talented. Beautiful.  Loved.  Cultured.  Outgoing.  Athletic.  Fabulous.  I could never accept who I was, and the reality that I lived in.

I think that's why I struggle so much out here.  I'm not any of those made up things.  I'm sad.  Inadequate.  Indecisive.  I swear too much.  I'm angry.  Negative.  Sullen.  Unmotivated.  Burdened.

I'm always on.  I don't know what it's like to be off.  I'm always worrying about bills, do we have enough milk, is the baby fed and dry, what are we going to have for supper, do we have the ingredients, did my husband remember his cell phone, did someone drag the garbage to the curb, is the timer on the PVR for our favourite show, did we lock the truck, I have to do invoicing, remittance, payroll, have we killed all the fruit flies, did E remember to eat breakfast and take a lunch to school (she insisted on making her own lunch this year), and somewhere in all of that I have to have a shower.  I feel like I'm cheating if I shower every day now.  I'm lucky if I get a shower in every other day.  I barely remember to brush my teeth anymore.  I'm too worried about other things.

We're drowning in a mountain of debt.  Business isn't doing too terribly well, and the clients we do have take too long to pay.  This keeps me up most nights and shoves me into darkness most days.  Money.  Debt.

This is not who I wanted to be.  I had dreams.

Don't get me wrong, I am VERY thankful for my husband, and my two beautiful girls.  But I had a very different picture in my head.  A bright picture of happiness, success, great health, puppies and rainbows.

I don't know how to pull back the curtains in this dark room.