Bleak Cocoa, Needs Sugar

Here's a weird little irony: today is the first day I've felt good enough (a.k.a. not horribly sleep deprived and therefore not grumpy, spacy and depressed) to post about how bad I've been feeling lately. And let me just say right up front that I offer this whole post up not in a "trolling for sympathy/oh poor meeee" way, but in more of a "recording this for posterity/writing as therapy" kind of way. I wasn't sure at first if I even did want to post about this, but essay-like ideas, metaphors, and sentences have persistently kept forming in my brain, knocking about in there and wanting out. So, fine, I'll take a shot at potentially embarrassing myself in front of the entire internet with my personal problems, in the hopes that, in true "personal is political" feminist form, what I'm feeling might be something others can relate to. (And even if others can't, I don't care. My blog, my therapy. Nyah.)

Ok. That being said, I've been feeling really crappy. A desperate, bitter, bleak, drained, "everything sucks and I suck too" kind of crappy. I know, I know, I KNOW that this state of mind is largely brought on by persistent exhaustion and Chinese-water-torture sleep deprivation, which in itself is a somewhat inevitable result of being a full time working mama with a preschooler and a 5 month old baby. Sure. But it still. Sucks. A lot. My happy face is becoming harder and harder to put on. No matter how much I reach into the reserves and draw upon my martial arts-like discipline and routine, or my gold-medal-winning training in the suck-it-up Olympics, I can barely keep it together, physically and emotionally. Physically, I'm dealing with persistent pain in my shoulder and achy, knotted back and neck muscles that would probably keep me awake even if I was able to sleep more than 4 hours in a row. Emotionally, I'm unbalanced and definitely tipping towards the dark side (you know, anger leads to fear, fear leads to hate, hate leads to suffering, yadda yadda yadda) way more often than I want to. I'm unnecessarily grumpy to my dear husband and oldest child, I find myself resenting the baby when he cries for my attention, I even get pissy with the cat when she desperately hurls herself at my legs, looking any shred of the love she used to get. The usual cyclonic chaos of life logistics and making plans is killing me--even the idea of trying to schedule time with friends sounds like more work than it's worth. Creative projects feel at best, overwhelming, and at worst, worthless (my novel, for example, is foundering badly in a sea of confusion, too full of unresolved plot holes and authorial self-loathing to move forward). I feel lonely and isolated, even in the midst of my life's usual whirlwind. Things which should be sweet are bitter instead, like biting into a square of baker's chocolate when you expected a Hershey bar, or taking a swig of burnt French Roast diner coffee when you expected a teeth-rotting Frappucino.

I'm scared of getting stuck in this state of bleak bitter sadness, too exhausted to appreciate my life and the blessings it holds, or the good moments I definitely do have. I know that some extra sleep is the sugar I need to add back into the crazy cocoa that is my life, to make it palatable again. But, to extend the metaphor until it breaks (as I'm so fond of doing), I feel like there's a war on and sugar has been rationed, and I've already used my meager portion baking goodies for other people and it'll be a while until I get any more. So where do I get me some more sugar? Borrow it? From where? Start growing and pressing my own damn sugar beets? With what copious spare time? Sure, rationally, I can prescribe myself more sleep, you don't have to prescribe it for me--I know, I know. But it is far, far easier said than done. I think for now I have to just sit with the bleak truth that it still might be awhile before life gets back to its full chocolate-y sweetness again. I remind myself of one of my mom's favorite statements: this too shall pass. This too shall pass. This too shall pass. I repeat it like an incantation, hug it to me like a teddy bear. I am strong enough to survive this. This too shall pass.