I've been out, I've been in, I've been sick to my stomach physically and mentally, but I think I have finally pulled myself out of this god farted funk.
I said "fuck it" to two of my finals. This entire semester has been shit. I've been stressed and I have, for the first time in my life, been very ill for a good long time. Not really ill as in physically ill, though it did manifest itself as such every so often, but sick in the mind. I have been intolerably down in the dumps. I think I'm getting out of it.
There are still moments, though, when I'm falling asleep that I wonder if I will wake up. My therapist tells me that feelings of impending death are normal amongst those that suffer from depression.
I also know that this is the first time I have fully accepted that I
am suffering from depression. Something rather serious that really puts me into a bad state every here and again.
I am taking next semester off of school, so I will not be attending for either summer (my usual time off) or fall semester. I don't mind this. It's not that I am tired of school, not really. OK, so, I'm feeling a little under-challenged... but that's to be expected in a community college with someone like me. I mean, I honestly wish that my teachers would call bullshit on me once in a while. I cannot even count the times that I have done homework or "term papers" in a matter of hours, with no real prior research, and received full marks. I wish a teacher would read the paper and go, "Teigra, this is obviously not researched thoroughly enough. Sorry, but I'll have to give you a C."
I would honestly feel almost relieved.
I don't feel like I'm learning much right now. But I know that, given this tremendous break I'm giving myself, I will miss school by the time I re-enroll next spring.
I also really want to read what I want to read, and I want to write. I want to feel like I can paint, draw, and do what I will without going, "Ah, lord, I have homework to do and papers to write." Even when I'm bullshitting, it still takes a while. Especially when I'm going to school full time.
I have accepted a second job and a local pet shop, but I'm already feeling that it's a bad fit even though I have not had a single day on the job. The manager is dropping big, stinky hints that she wishes I would quit my job at the bookstore so I could be their wage-bitch. Tough luck, I get paid more at the bookstore and I love it more than I ever would working at a corporate hell-hole.
The second job is to help save up some money. I have a necessity to either rent a small art studio or move into a two-bedroom with the boyfriend so that I can have an office. I desperately need my own space to be creative. Sharing a room is not conductive a creative atmosphere.
Yet, I have found myself within the last few hours, amidst the huge sigh of relief that I am finally
almost over with this semester (one more easy paper to write!), with words floating in my head begging to be written.
Whenever I'm in my writers mood, I get words and phrases stuck in my head, in the same fashion as having a song playing over and over in my mind. The words tickle, they feel all bubbly and pressing, like first blushes and first loves. They want to be written down, they are innocent of the direction, intent, that I may give them.
I've been thinking a lot about death, as I mentioned briefly a moment ago. One of these things is the person looking upon the corpse of their dead lover. What is that like? Do they remember all those times that they held each other? All the times that she or he whispered "fuck me" or "love me" or "hold me"? Do they want to reach out and touch the cold, hard flesh, or do they know that this motion would be wrong, for it would steal away the memory of their warmth?
I've been thinking of my characters and my stories. As always, in the first blush of a new story, I'm thinking of new ways to torment them. I have also been thinking about what this says about me as a person. Do I torment my characters, who are like my only beloved children, because I myself have been tormented as a child? Do I want to give them a hard life to overcome so that I can satisfy my need to overcome my own demons? Are they the embodiments of my psyche to fret and worry about the pages in my stead?
But always in my stories there is love, there is hope after the hard storm, there is the joy in simple and pure things. There is always some lingering reason to go on and to keep fighting, no matter how small it may seem to be at first.
Sometimes I think that if these stories ever make their way to print, it will be very hard for the average reader to sympathize with my characters. For who has really gone through this hard of a life? Who wants to put themselves in these shoes for any length of time? I have found through hard experience that most do not wish to hear about my life, that it makes them uncomfortable. I've also heard people say that when they read a book, they often dream of it and imagine it while they are reading. Would people really want to dream these dark lives? Would I make them so uncomfortable that they would put my book down and recommend to their friends never to pick it up?
These things flick their way across my conscience sometimes, these doubts. Then the words and phrases get stuck in my head again and I realize that the stories, my stories, do not care for the world at large. I need and want to write what I have to.
My mind keeps going back to what people are like in the face of death. A part of me wishes that I had already experienced a death of someone close to me. Then that part of me turns to look at my boyfriend, whom I love. I have imagined him dead many times, imagined the pit that it would leave in my life, and I realize that I may be closer to experiencing a death then I want to admit. He is, after all, short for this world.
Not that I like to think on it much. Only that I do.
...
....
Suddenly a loss for words. Damn it all.
-Teigra-
