December = Blecch

Oh hey, guess what?  It’s December and I can’t stop crying.   If you’ve been around a while you have likely already guessed it.  I hate the weird lull between Thanksgiving and Christmas when you hemorrhage money and you wonder what it is all really for and you wish you could just climb into bed with the people that you love and knit hats and wear sweatpants and eat pizza and watch movies on repeat. Oh?  That’s just me?

But when I am not moping I am hanging Christmas lights and loving my people. That’s the real pisser about the Winter Time Blues.  It’s broken up by a lot of really great moments.   This year’s funk is extra special.  Because the only thing that makes me sad and scared and completely anxious more than cold weather is good, good news.

When MQD and I got engaged I was elated.  And then terrified that I wouldn’t get pregnant.  When we got married and immediately got pregnant I was over the moon and then beyond scared that I would never be able to grow a healthy baby.  When my perfect Lucy Q arrived I was certain that I would never be a good wife and a good mother at the same time and that my marriage was destined for the shitter.

So, I started running and swimming and biking and smiling and taking good care of me and of my people and things were good.  Really good.  For years, really. This last month things have been so good that I am starting the road to self-sabotage that I know so well.  It starts with candy wrappers shoved under the seat of my car.  And then I start skipping the gym.  And then I stay up too late too often and then I sleep in too often and then I start to knit hats and wear the same pants every day and whoa.  Before I know it I am weeping.  MQD says that depression is thinking about the past and that anxiety is obsessing about the future. I think I am anxiously wallowing in the present. I am a multi-tasker.

It has been more than ten years since I was fearlessly hopeful.  I had a new house and two new cars and a baby on the way and I was Living.  Things were Good. They were just going to get Better. Right? It was ten years ago that things started to crumble and I started to dismantle that dream one house, one car, one marriage at a time but it still haunts me.  I am so fucking scared to get excited because it hurts so bad when it falls apart.  I feel fearlessly hopeful for a moment and my head caves in and the “Don’t do this, you know better than that, you won’t survive heartbreak twice” starts inside my head and I beeline it to the gas station for M&Ms.  Not even my regular gas station because I don’t want to see anyone I know.

How long?  How long until I won’t be afraid when things get really good? And what’s so good, you wonder?  Nothing.  Everything.  We renovated the kitchen.  I like my kids.  My sweet three million year old dog is healthy. My husband is fucking awesome and he listens and he loves me so much and he really, really likes me.   And I have great friends.  And a Life that I really, really want.  I am good at struggling, I am good at working towards a goal.  But what do you do when you look around and you think “This.  I want this, just like this.  Can’t it stay just like this?” That’s terrifying.

I hope you had a good Thanksgiving.  I hope that you felt the same kind of  all consuming gratitude that I enjoyed.  And even more than that – I hope that if you are in a moment of your life that is Good that you can find the strength to let it be.  Being happy shouldn’t be so damn stressful.

To the gym.  To the grocery store.  Thanksgiving leftovers are gone.  And it’s not time to start eating cookies day and night.  Not yet.  Thanks for being here.  And for reading.