Carry on

Blogger's note: I wrote this blog post a few days ago, then almost immediately second-guessed it. I didn't want to post something that felt false and within just a few hours of writing it, I had spun out of this moment of clarity and back to a darker, foggier side of my brain. It's been several days of enormous suckitude since. Yesterday, a friend posted this video for me as a show of support. The lyrics of the whole song really sound like the band followed me around and took notes on my life in preparation for writing their song. Of course, I feel that way because I generally forget the universe doesn't revolve around me and these are themes felt by most people. I decided to take my friend posting the song for me as a sign from the universe (or a sign from Cass) that I should believe in myself for more than a heartbeat and just publish it. So, maybe I'm not feeling my own blog post at the moment, but I hope I get back there soon. For those of you not feeling it either, just for now, let's carry on.
  

Santa is very bad. Awful. Stinking rotten.

I'll admit it: I'm an emo 13-year-old girl inside. It doesn't matter if I'm up or down, I have trouble controlling what words come flying out of my fingertips. Social media is not my friend in these moments. I'm a media professional who considers herself a responsible writer, holding herself to standards unheard or unrealized by oh-so-many Millennials, who have grown up believing that words are something to flick off a touch screen at lightning speed. Despite my high ideals, I still shoot off status posts that lead many of my friends to question my mental and physical health, and rightly so. I need an "emo filter" on my status posts.

If I'm particularly wallowing in the existential self-pity that plagues those of us caught in perpetual pubescent angst, I post song lyrics.

You swore and said
We are not
We are not shining stars
This I know
I never said we are

Though I've never been through hell like that
I've closed enough windows
To know you can never look back

If you're lost and alone
Or you're sinking like a stone
Carry on
May your past be the sound
Of your feet upon the ground
Carry on

Carry On by Fun.

I'm not going to lie, folks, the last six and a half weeks of my life have sucked. I've been deeply hurt, which led to me being out of control, sad, enraged — a lot of emotions I'm not used to having anymore or ever. I've felt anxiety unlike any I've ever felt in my life and — with two cancer diagnoses behind me — you can imagine the anxiety I've managed to navigate in the past. At times — oh, hell, most of the time — I've felt like the only person on the planet who has been or is suffering heartbreak. The only person to have been deeply betrayed, not once, but many times. The only person to wake up on Christmas morning and realize there is no fucking Santa Claus, only a heaping mountain of lies.

Truly, when friends have given me the smack I needed and said, "Hey, wake up idiot! This happens to lots of people! You aren't the only 40-something who feels her life is horribly off track! You aren't the only person who has been devastated!" I felt like their voices were far away, like a pinpoint of light at the end of a very long, dark, cold path in the woods. I knew the light was there, but I didn't really believe I'd ever make it. It seemed pretty impossible.

I get it now. The light is a closer, anyway, and I know I have the power to carry me there, but it's going to take time to reach it. It still stinks. I'll probably have to take some naps along the way. I need a Gatorade and a Power Bar. But it's getting closer.

But I like to think
I can cheat it all
To make up for the times I've been cheated on
And it's nice to know
When I was left for dead
I was found and now I don't roam these streets
I am not the ghost you want of me

I doubt very much the next six months or year (or the rest of my life) is going to be the non-stop party I'd like it to be. (WHY NOT!?!?!?!) I know how I work. It's always two steps forward and one step back. A big fat party and a week of recuperation. Struggling to climb a ladder, while skinning my knees and gathering bruises everywhere. The backpedaling is never a choice I make. I'm never running away. Running away has never been an option for me. It's just backsliding and it just happens. My body and my brain just put on the brakes, slide back and force me to slow down. It's  part of the process and the only way to make overall progress. But I'm telling ya, it blows: sorting out real from lies; admitting what was done to me and what I did to myself; acknowledging the woundedness in others, while only able to do anything about the woundedness of myself. There is only one word for it:

UGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

I hope I spelled that right.

However, I'm going to carry on. I want my past to be the sound of my feet on the ground. So, I carry on.

Emo girl, out. (microphone drop)

P.S. And if I ever get a chance, I'm marrying that dude from Fun. Because he named his band Fun. With a period. He didn't say, "Hey, guys, let's name our band Fun because we like to have Fun." No, he said, "Let's name our band Fun., period." It's an order, not a passing thought. Brilliant.