I guess I haven’t been doing myself any favors lately.  I’m on the brink of another minor depressive episode and I keep feeding it instead of fighting it.  Feeding it with cookies.

Maybe it’s just the overexertion leading up to the DNC business that’s got me in this black hole of sorts.  A vacuum.  It just occurred to me that that’s sort of what it feels like.  Figuratively, of course.  Hm.

I woke up this morning feeling very heavy.  Like gravity was stronger than usual and it was too much for me to hold myself up.  So I laid down.  And slept.  Until about 3 this afternoon.  (I ate all the cookies first)

The primary symptoms of this current bout seem to be a general lack of sense of purpose in addition to the standard feelings of loneliness, feelings of inadequacy, lack of motivation about anything and everything.  I see my dying houseplants as a symbol of my inevitable failure at whatever it is I’m attempting (life, or a reasonable facsimile thereof).

I tell myself that in order to be happy I need to pursue the things that are important to me, things that give my life meaning, and I can’t think of any.

Part of me wants to go back to a retail job just so I can meet some different people.  That’s one thing about an office job; unless you really like the people you work with, there’s no social benefit.  At least in retail one comes across the occasional friendship.  But as soon as I had that thought just now I had a flash of a vision of myself working the counter at Starbucks, green visor and all.  It was sad and terrifying.

How does one find meaning in one’s life?  For many, I suppose, it’s family.  Get married, have children.  Two things I absolutely want nothing to do with.

What is there, if not that?  The good thing about having kids is that, if you play your cards right, you can count on having someone around to take care of you when you get too old to take care of yourself.  But jesus, that’s no good reason to have kids.  Not for the kids, and not for you.  Throw away your life and several fortunes raising, feeding, sheltering and clothing a human being.  The responsibility.  The strife.  The stress.  Not worth it, in my opinion.  They say it’s rewarding.  I say, only if you wanted it in the first place.  So that’s out.

The only other option is to find something really worth living for.  But typically, one can’t make a living at the thing one really loves doing.  If there were even something I loved doing that much.  And it’s so hard to find the time outside of work to hunt down any of the things one might feasibly love or come to love.

The teahouse is still a dream, one I don’t allow to come too near my heart because it will break me if I do.  But it still hangs around, waiting for me to gather enough money and know-how to give it a go.

I think that’s part of my problem, really.  I have marvelous ideas from time to time, but I won’t take any of them seriously enough, won’t really throw myself into them with passion and gusto and all-my-heart, because I’m afraid of failure.

And I’ve kind of known that all along.

So here I am, effectively treading water in life, waiting for something foolproof to come along, something instantly successful so I won’t be afraid.

And of course I know that’s not how it works.  You could almost say that my purpose in life (at this point in my life anyway) is to learn to stop being afraid of it.  Of life.  I’ve gotten to a point where I recognize that I am not happy with my situation, not happy with myself.  I think the only real change will come from taking the leap.  Maybe it’s a leap, maybe it’s a slow crawl out of a shell, I don’t know.  But if I don’t, I will continue to have these cycles of mediocre living to kind of crappy living.  But how does one make such a change when this has been my behavior pattern since as long as I can remember?

I have to care.  I have to remind myself each day, this is for ME, this is for HAPPINESS, this is for LIFE.  Am I ready for that commitment?  It makes me anxious just thinking about it.  What if I start tomorrow, and then Monday I fail again?  What if I tell myself things will be different and I don’t do what I promise?  The terror I am facing is the choice between continuing to be exactly what I have always expected myself to be, or believing that I can be more, that I deserve to be more, that I WANT to be more.

I can’t un-eat the cookies.  Can I keep myself from eating any more?