At the very least, that was what it felt like to me. On the first day, I wore my bright red AmeriCorps Public Allies hoodie, thinking it would somehow offset the muddled mood of the day. I put on pink, dirtied garden gloves, filled my jean pockets with packets of seed, and headed outside into the wet mist. The thoughts in my head sludged between the desire to cocoon in my bed, or doing something productive, something I had planned on doing since the dirt had been delivered for my garden beds. Poking holes into the bloated mix of topsoil and compost, I sowed seeds next to wooden popsicle sticks sharpied with names like “Strawberry corn,” “Sylvetta arugula,” and “Chioggia beets.” I moved mechanically, moving just to keep active, in hopes I could brighten my day through sheer will, that my planting would bring the sun out.

Dave came outside to see me, no doubt noticing my somber mood. I leaned into him for a hug, and felt tears spill over the bottom lids of my eyes.

“Why are you crying?” He asked in a soft tone.

“I don’t know.” I really didn’t.

It helped big time. I still had anxiety issues, but nothing so wholly overwhelming as before. I could sleep. On top of that, I was accepted into AmeriCorps. This meant job security in a new, engaging environment, along with health benefits.

I moved in with my lover. I had swore not to live with anyone else unless I was sure we were going to get married. My lover wanted me to move in with him, and I resisted at first. Not because I didn’t think we would get married, but because we hadn’t really discussed it. I loved him, he loved me, but I didn’t want to get halfway settled down with someone just to move again if we were at odds. I was looking at apartments near my new job with AmeriCorps. He lived in the next town over.

I took the chance, though. I knew he was devoted. He had never lived with one of his partners before, so I knew he was serious about us.

We’re still living together, and we’ve had several discussions on options and ideas for our future together. He wants to marry me. I love him. We have a great thing going.

Moving an hour away from where I was has had its consequences. I see two of my closest friends once a month or every other month. Another group of friends that were dear to me have been slipping away. It’s been difficult to maintain the relationship I had with my younger sister. At first, I felt isolated at times. My lover introduced me to his friends who are all pleasant enough people, but I wanted my own friends. I wanted to build my own network. I know friendships are important for addressing a personal tendency to depression and anxiety. I have developed relationships with co-workers, and with his friends. I have done my best to stay in touch with old friends. I am still working on “outside relationships” with other young professionals and other artists in the area. By that, I mean, I am keeping an eye out for people to connect with and cultivate those connections.

I am also focused on my day-to-day doings and hobbies. I like to keep a fairly clean house. I have created two large vegetable beds and a container garden that is providing me with hours of delight and a sense of accomplishment. I have been more active in my art studio as I prepare to start a new side business. I am making plans for my future regarding further education and a career in the non-profit sector. I have been accepted into a summer AmeriCorps program to produce a play for teenagers. I have also been accepted into a second year of the AmeriCorps program I am currently in. This means more money for education, and more opportunities for learning and growth while remaining in service. As a bonus, I will continue to have health insurance.

I am no longer taking medications. I have the occasional anxious day or night. I have mood swings. I have taken to exercising and eating healthier to help deal. I count my blessings. I have a sweet life. I remind myself of these things.

Also important, I create new blessings. I put in the work to have a fulfilling experience in AmeriCorps, and to continue in the program. I am planning and putting into place the steps to graduate school. I have taken steps toward utilizing my art skills as a way to make money again. I cultivate a meaningful relationship with my lover, and I work to make myself a better person. I splurged and created a garden I could feel proud of. I try to do little things each day that build to great things. I am planning a life, and letting go of old plans that don’t work.

It’s a journey. A journey that I can co-create.

The challenge now is to streamline my life and really exercise some willpower in time management – in order to process these things, and add more creativity and movement in my life.

In my most recent relationship, I have been very sensitive to issues of care and responsibility. It has been the pattern in my relationships to allow partners to do things for me – take my car to get an oil change, motivate me to do my taxes, deal with annoying people over the phone, pay for dinner, etc. I have gotten very used to that.

In two of my break ups, I was accused of being cold and unreciprocating. And even though in one of these break ups, the other person paid for dinner and things like that because they wanted to at the time, this was thrown in my face as one way in which they showed they cared more than I did.

As such, I am striving to become a better person at reciprocating with my new partner. I am striving to be available, and warm. I try to think of and do nice little things to keep him comfortable or happy. I think I do a pretty good job, even though this person gets to deal with all my neurotic and existential issues.

However, there is a large income disparity between us – he pays in taxes what I earn in a year. As such, he pays for most of our dinners and outings.It has me a little bit on edge. I try my best to accept it with good graces, and I find ways to “repay.” I should ask him if he thinks I have been doing a good job of that.

I want to address another topic tied into this as well. And that is, taking responsibility for oneself and one’s life. Responding to life’s stimuli with ownership, and perhaps a smack of zeal. That’s what I’m striving for, anyway.

In an earlier post, I talked about owning your own happiness, and never expecting someone else to hold the burden for you. I believe this extends to everything – my sadness, my job, my art, and the ten thousand tiny mundane little things I must do every day. I am a grown woman with responsibilities, and I do not want anyone else to take ownership for them.

Then, when you are in a partnership, you are a team, so you help lift each other’s burdens a little. At least, this is what I’m told. I guess my issue now is to discover the balance between my sense of independence regarding these things (that I have so easily allowed past partners to take ownership for), and letting someone else help me.

My boyfriend goes above and beyond. Besides not running away screaming, he listens to what I have to say, and he does give advice and encouragement, but ultimately he accepts and supports what I decide to do. I have told him of my tendency to lean on others for aid (and emotional balance) all the while being cold and nonreciprocal. He seems to be allowing me to stand on my own two feet while wanting to be an important part of my life.

As my days pass, I find a deeper struggle for meaning and joy lurking beneath the surface. I have many days where I feel okay, and I might even feel joy, but the days (and there are at least a couple per week) where I don’t, have become more dangerous, I think. As I transition into the next stage of this life, the path is dark and crooked. With it, I must balance my responsibilities with my relationships, especially the one with myself. I recognize that I have come to depend on him for emotional balance, for feelings that are okay and even joyful…but I know that I must work past this, and find joy in other areas of my life, as well.

Keeping all this in mind, my boyfriend is encouraging me to have more therapy. (Ha ha!) I see my therapist about every two weeks, though when I began my new job, I didn’t see her for five. He points out my days of unstability, points out that SSRIs shouldn’t necessarily be dismissed out of hand, and tells me he wants me to get better.

I don’t have the money to see my therapist every week. So, he is insisting for me to allow him to pay for the weeks I can’t afford. I want to get better, for myself, and for him. I know his offer is not just for me to get better, but for the benefits it brings us both.

I love him. Deeply. I can see this relationship potentially going somewhere. I know he loves me and I think he feels the same way about the potential of the relationship. Yet, I don’t know that this is the right move. I feel that it is okay to accept the money so long as he is giving it willingly, which he is. Yet, I don’t feel this should be his burden. Also, I am doing my best to take responsibility for myself in all areas of my life.

I will be talking to my therapist. Anyone else have anyhting to say?

Today I went from teaching a painting class to a bridesmaid dress fitting with my friend who is marrying in October, to doing the make-up of another friend who was dressing in drag for our church auction, to taking pics at the auction surrounded by fellow church members, and finally ending up at Borders with fellow writing creatives. I felt like an outsider looking in through most of it, I lied when people asked how I was doing (“Pretty good, how are you?”), and no one would ever know. I am engaging, I smile, I joke and laugh, and no one would know how fine I am with life ceasing to exist at certain points of the day.

But I don’t want to be like that! I want life to be exciting and enervating. I want to be in love with life. I’m just not finding life to be very loving right now.

I try to remember strategies throughout my days that will keep me balanced and sane. Strategies like smiling to help release happy neurotransmitters, and taking life one moment at a time.

I understand now why I focus so much on partnerships. I have never had much passion for anything in life, except maybe reading and learning. I paint and dance, and I enjoy those things, and I am driven to do those things from time to time, but I do not have the driving perseverance that so many painters and dancers do. I understand now that this is something that can be cultivated.

So, for so many years, not having the passionate drive for anything, and having spent so many years underemployed, my relationships have been my shining spot. They have been sources of passion and fulfillment (as well as dissatisfaction and pain). And I am recognizing now that since so many of them end in pain, it’s difficult for me to see their value otherwise. I am trying to find other sources for passion and fulfillment, and my life as it is right now, makes that difficult.

I know, I know. I could change my life. It will change. I will finish the children’s book I am illustrating for a client in April, my class will end in May, and my part-time job will end in June. I may be accepted into the Americorps. Life will change. I just hope I can remain as sane and as whole as I possibly can.

I love it. I love sitting in a warm place where the outside world is drowned out by the hum of the tanning bed and the whirr of the fan. I am alone to think, to ponder and pontificate, to relax and meander through my thoughts. If I am upset, it is a time in which I can decompress, and process why I am upset, and how do I feel better. If I feel overwhelmed by the world when it gets especially demanding, I can retreat to this place for ten or fifteen minutes at a time. No one in my world knows I do it, except for my boyfriend and my sister, who noticed the change in my skin color. It is for me.

And apparently now there’s an increase on the tax for tanning thanks to the new health reform. LOL. All these years I didn’t go tanning, and now the charge will increase! Oh well. I have found it to be worth it.

I’m busy, though. I think everyone, especially my partner, thought it would be good for me to be kept busy. Then I won’t sit around thinking the thoughts I do. But, I think them anyway. It’s just now I’m doing something while I think them. Now I’m really tired at the end of the day. Now, I have no time for reading, writing, or painting for leisure. Now I wonder what is the point of living just for the weekends.

Yet, I am trying to be proactive about these kinds of thoughts. I am learning how to enjoy what I’m doing, no matter what it is. Small, hopeful thoughts keep entering, ones about how truly fascinating and complex the world is, even if there is no inherent meaning in it. That, I’m here and living it, so why not live it well? Why not choose happiness instead of despair? It has me thinking I need to read more Nietzsche…when I finally do have the time for it.

The illustrations will be finished in April. The class ends in May. The part-time job is over in June. Slowly, I will have just the forty hours at the fulltime job to be concerned with, and I will have more time to invest in other things. I have little anecdotes I would like to add here, connections I have made with the people I work with, and other thoughts and ideas on life. When I have time. When I am not so exhausted. I can barely think creatively. I need creativity. It’s my other facet of meaning. The first facet of meaning? The connections I make with others, no matter how transitory.

Goodnight.

I admitted to my therapist my thoughts of suicide that occurred this past winter, spring, and summer. How I didn’t want to be alone for ten days in Cape Cod because I was afraid I might do something stupid. How I invited friends to hang with on the days that my mother and sister were not up with me because I did not trust myself to be alone. Yay for the part of me that was still occupied with self-preservation. The first I admitted this to anyone was on Valentine’s Day, to my lover. It kind of fell out of my mouth during an emotional upset. I was going to tell him at some other time, but these things have a way of revealing themselves. Why tell him? Because I think it’s important that he knows how far down the rabbit hole can go, especially if he continues to be with me.

My therapist asked me how I got to that point of thinking. I told her I had been wondering the same thing, along with what got me out of that way of thinking. Not to say I don’t wish I could cease existing now… I have my moments, but they are not hungry and desperate like before. As far as I can figure out, it was when I finally decided to stop fooling myself in my search for a Divine Hand to hold, and when I really considered the workings of the world and the people in it. After that, I began isolating myself. My mother and I stopped talking, I wasn’t allowed to see my sister, I broke it off with my girlfriend, I played a lot of computer games, I read fanfiction, I read existentialist philosophy, I dated some people to experiment with the dating world (lonely and isolating despite the social part), and eventually had an involved fling with an emotionally stunted man (also isolating). At some point I realized the isolation was no good, and I broke it off with said emotionally stunted man, and decided to get myself some help (hence the therapist), and began socializing with my friends a lot more. Plus watching a lot of ted.com talks on happiness, pyschology, and neuroscience, and other variables that lead to my growth – sun steps in dark depths.

Beyond this, my therapist seems to think I have an avenue in life, that once I embrace it, will give me the purpose and meaning I have been searching for. In her view, it is that I am a giving person. She says she sees an intelligent, vibrant young woman with a lot to give. That on my path to ministry, and as an artist, I have much to share with the world, and when I finally embrace that part of myself, there will be no stopping me.

I am a humanitarian, but I am not an altruist. At it’s very base, my point of view on conduct in the world is that if you can alleviate someone else’s suffering (including your own), why not do it? This does not make their suffering your responsibility – in fact I do advocate that one develops healthy boundary lines, and that one must be conscious of “filling the well,” to borrow a term from Julia Cameron. To give, whether creatively or in service, you yourself must be fulfilled. And I forget this from time to time, or rather, I forget it often. I forget to care for myself, I forget to implement emotional strategies that will aid my own growth, I forget not to judge myself, I forget to cross out activities and thoughts that will deplete my resources emotionally and physically, I forget my own “words of wisdom.” As a result, I become mechanical in my job where I have the opportunity to help underprivileged kids, I play video games instead of creating art, and I forget the values I claim to live by.

Time to put some more of life under the microscope, and beyond that, do something about it.

I told him of my “bad artist” woes, and though he held me and said things to make me smile, he didn’t say, “You’re a good artist, stop demeaning yourself.” He acknowledged my frustration, but he didn’t spoonfeed me praise and validation as an artist, though part of me was looking for it. When he went back to his activity, I was left with my own thoughts on the subject. I know I have to continue trying. I’m frustrated, but I will continue trying. This may be a bad day for art, but there will be good days, too. There will be breakthroughs.

After a while, he came back in and said, “In an hour, why don’t we watch some Office and do a crossword? Does that sound like a good goal?” And I agreed, of course. The Office relaxes me and elevates my seratonin levels unlike any other television show I have ever watched. And crosswords are an excellent nerdy activity that we share and enjoy.

I’m grateful to have him in my life, and I am grateful that my brain isn’t entirely crazy.