Why the long face?

Well, in his case it’s cause he’s a donkey, innit.

In my case, however, it is because I am a little depressed, as was so gently pointed out to me yesterday by someone who knows about these things.

And it’s true. I actually feel a bit better having been helped to figure it out. I’m not someone that sees depression always a ‘problem’. I think, especially when life throws you a few curve balls, it can be a very natural emotional reaction. In my case it is exacerbated almost entirely by not enough sleep. I know it will pass. At the moment it is fairly under control, I am still very much functioning – my house is clean, my child is happy and nothing is galloping out of my control. In the contrasting manic moods of which I am prone, and always have been, I haven’t yet done anything too catastrophic. I’ve not joined the circus, for starters, which, given I can still get my feet behind my head and have a tendency to fall over my own shadow, is always a tempting escape plan.

I just feel… blue, and very uncertain. That especially. Right now I don’t have a single sure thing to build a sense of security around. I don’t know where I’m going to live, how I’m going to support myself, get out of this benefits trap I’m stuck in and make a better life for me and my son, I don’t know what support is going to be available to me. I don’t know what I’m doing. What I WANT seems so buried under piles of restrictions that it’s hard to get a clear grasp of it. Without a clear point on the horizon to fix my eyes on, all I can do is blindly put one foot in front of the other. And all I do just now is wander in circles, aimlessly. The same words, the same thoughts, the same worries. Round and round and round till I’m dizzy. You must be dizzy from it too – it’s hardly new sentiments that I’m writing here.

Some of it is grief, old and long-carried, and new in the emotional roller coaster that is watching my dear Grandmother slowly die. It is a strange feeling to be grieving before someone has even died, but I am doing, and it’s affecting me far more strongly than I had anticipated. The agony of waiting is a hard one. We all say our goodbyes,  prepare ourselves, breath held, and she picks up a little, only for the next week to bring the same process all over again. It’s hard not to wish it to be soon. She looks so broken, so tired, a barely-there shell of the woman of whom I am partly made. My grief of losing her is pulling at other strings, too. Other parts of heart and brain that I hadn’t even really been aware of.

Anyway. It will pass, I know it will. Something will change. Grandma will find peace when she is ready to – typical, and much like her granddaughter to insist on doing it in her own time. And one day when I’m wandering around looking at the sky I’ll see a flash up ahead and finally find something to aim towards. I know I’ve just got to be patient.

But it does mean I need to be a bit careful just now. I can’t trust my moods so much, and I need the space and energy to weather them, and to try and do that with some dignity which is hard sometimes. I need to simplify and cut out excess noise in my life so I can hear myself. I need to focus on me and my boy, mostly. I need to just keep loving him and trust it will all come right.

And I need to keep myself fed. Words and beauty and love. I need to create a little puddle of light to sit in till this passes.

I shall be around. Maybe a bit quieter than usual, but I’ll still be here. Thanks for the company.

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