Back in the Pool

I feel like I'm on the verge of that drowning feeling again. I recently read a post from a blogger who also struggles with depression about how she has been teetering, wondering if she's fallen back into depression. Her descriptions of the endless slew of negative thoughts and feelings both overcome you and leave you wondering if you're actually feeling depressed or stressed or what.

I'm not sure what it is, but the stress of crazy days at work, managing a home that's not mine, saving money for a wedding, planning and doing for the wedding, planning and nightmare-ing about the parents and the wedding, and this nagging cold/bronchitis I've had for 2 weeks now (wah), I feel overwhelmed. Or I'm on the brink of overwhelmed. Sometimes I have a premonition of myself, balled up and crying, trying to escape and cleanse all the negativity, but it hasn't quite exploded yet. Is it about to? I'm not sure, but it sure feels looming.

As if a stereo was blasting white noise and I just couldn't find the "off" switch, feelings of nervousness and anxiety, worries that things won't get done, and fears that I won't be worthy or successful crowd out any joy left in me. Sleep no longer brings rest, and I feel like I'm waiting... waiting to let a breath out... waiting to open my eyes to some relief.

Everything inspires more anxiety. The absence of a smile. The addition of a project. The ringing of my cell phone. The notice of a new email. Why do I think it's all out to get me?

Happy Tuesday.

Nicknames

Muffin. Honey. Honeybuns. Babe. Baby. The boy and I used to always mock couples who have nicknames like these for each other. We always thought it was way too cutesy for us. Individually, we didn't really have nicknames ourselves either, with friends or with significant others.

Of course, having said that, we do have names we endearingly called each other, but we would NEVER utter them in public. So they don't exist...not really. Right?

The other day, the Czar sent me an e-mail just saying hello. That part I could get over. It was surprising but not overly so. The ending was what got me. He called me a nickname that roughly translates to "cutie" in English, something he probably hasn't called me in more than 15 years.

It was a one-line e-mail, but I thought about it again and again over the next few days. A nickname is such an intimate thing in my mind, and "intimate" is not how I would describe my relationship with him.

Maybe I've already told this story here, but it just goes to show how much it's stuck with me. I think the feeling of being a "Daddy's Little Girl" is one of the sweetest dynamics of a father-daughter relationship, but it's one that I'm not familiar with. When I was very young, probably 5 or 6, I remember watching a baseball or football game with the Czar. In typical fashion, I laid my head in his lap. But this time, he told me to get up. I wasn't to sit with him that way anymore. I was too old. The effect was like road rash. It burned and it scarred, and it changed things. It was breaking ground where a huge chasm would continue to grow between us.

So when the Czar called me "cutie," it brought me back to a time where I was Daddy's Little Girl, a short-lived time but a time that did indeed exist. So it IS true. That DID happen.

Strong, but Not Tough (Part 1)

Growing up, I was painfully shy. I remember grocery shopping with the Czar and Queen one day and asking where something was. When they told me I should ask a clerk, I immediately burst into tears. The thought of talking to a stranger filled me with an intense and inconsolable fear.

Whenever the Czar would discipline me with his time-tested method of endless hours of berating and yelling, I was never allowed to speak up. Of course, the occasional yes ("Do you agree with me?") and no ("Do you think what you did was right?") were in the script, but outside of that, I was to keep my mouth shut. I learned very early on that truth and justice had no place, but instead compliance and silent suffering were the easiest way to escape the verbal and sometimes physical lashings. I resolved that nothing was worth looking at that enraged, red-veined eyeball as he whipped me with a hanger, comb, shoehorn, whatever was nearby.

As I grew older, I got the bright idea that I should at least say something if the Czar misunderstood something. Any time I attempted at justifying or even proving my innocence, the result was merely more culpability. Whether it was for talking back or suggesting that they wrong (how dare I?), any words from me were met with more punishment and anger.

I learned that the most my "voice" would ever be was an internal wail of injustice, an all-night crying session, a cold ice-pack on the welts on my thighs. But even nurture can't quiet quell nature entirely. Outside the realm of home, I began to find my strength. Excelling in academics earned me a bit of authority, at least with classmates and teachers, and I began to find joy in others hearing me.

When I moved out for college, I decided to reinvent myself. I didn't want to be the girl that people knew was smart but never invited to parties. I didn't want to be the sucker who always took the blame because someone else told me to. I learned to be friendly. I learned to talk to strangers. I learned to talk to large groups of people. Recently, the boy asked me why I never considered business as a major. I explained that, as a shy person all my life, I never thought a career of working with other people and mingling suited me.

Anyone who met me after high school, knows me as a fairly outgoing, often funny and goofy person. I'm not a natural leader, but I'm not afraid to lead. I wouldn't say I'm combative, but I'm not afraid to call people out or make complaints when it's called for.

But at the root of my being, the insecurity and fear of returning to that once-lonely girl whose pillow was her only audience lead me on a spiral of anxiety. Like an offensive lineman, breaking through a row of bodies, I see everything as an obstacle. Everyone looks like the Czar to me. They're trying to shut me up. They don't believe me. They think I'm mindless. They'll never listen. They'll never care unless I force them. I bite, punch, kick, shove my way to the podium, when there may be no obstacles at all. The longer it takes to reach an assurance that I've been heard, understood, feels like precious seconds of holding my breath underwater. As another second ticks by, my heart quickens, my breath shallows, my mind races, and panic grows. I flail, I reach, but I can't seem to break the surface, find any relief.

While explaining this feeling to someone recently, I mentioned that I had felt weak for so long that I had to teach myself, make myself, be strong. They replied that, while I can be strong, and being strong is good, I didn't have to be so tough. That the forceful and abrasive nature with which I demand from people only recreates the loneliness. Navigating clumsily from one extreme to the other, I guess I haven't quite picked up the skill of asserting my strength with grace. I only know this because I see the one I love most has scratches and bruises from my pointless attempts to be heard.

Runaway Train

When you're hit with a bout of anxiety, whatever the reason, it hits you like a runaway train. You can kind of see it coming, but by the time your eyes have focused and you realize what it is, it hits you. And while it's running you over shredding your body limb by limb, wheel by wheel, you're also standing alongside the tracks watching it pass. Car after car, you marvel at the speed with which it's passing by. It feels like there's nothing you can do to stop it. It's sheer speed and strength make you wish you had shot yourself before it hit you are overwhelming.

Bursting My Bubble

When you don't have much history in the way of relationships, what happens is that your image or idea of what your love life will look like becomes inflated. Like a giant bubble. The more time that passes without experiences to bring you back to reality, the bubble just fills with more and more air.

Lately, as I spend more time with the Boy in the absence of my previous dictators, I'm coming to grips with the reality of the limitations of my relationship with him. In the way movies teach us, I want him to be my all, everything and the only thing I will ever need. But as the book tells us, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. We are so different in the ways we think, and that means that there are so many things that he can't possibly understand or empathize with.

Last night, I thought I was joining in his ongoing conversation about work frustrations, but it was heard as complaining. While silently handling the logistics of so many small and odd details, delegating the honeymoon planning to him was felt as unsupportive. In the grand scheme of things, I can understand that these translate to I don't want you to be so stressed and affected by work, so let me help you and I want to plan the BEST honeymoon for you and I'd like to do wedding stuff together, even the honeymoon planning.

But it seems to me that as women, the capacity of our empathy tanks are ten-fold that of men, and it's times like these where I become painfully aware of this fact. Throw my battles with anxiety in there, and you've got a night of restless sleep, tears, and hour after hour of anxiously wondering and worrying about what's happening next, tonight, and tomorrow.

It seems a little silly to me now, but that's the story of my journey through love. Time after time, every time a bubble is burst, I mourn the slow death of my fairytale. Of course, once you realize you've been living in a snow globe of a reality and that what's real is life, much more worth it than the sterile imagination you've rendered, you know you've traded in your Prince Charming for your soul mate. You turn in your two-dimensional fairy tale for the depth of reality.

A Baby's Desperation

Now that the Czar and Queen are out of state, I've been spending a lot more time with the Boy (yep, somehow there's more time to be spent together). During the first 2 years of our relationship, the Boy held on so stubbornly and anxiously to his time, his space, that we fought often about our individual readiness for a serious relationship. Was he ready to commit? Was I ready to let go of my imaginations of love?

There's always a part of me that remembers those times with a twinge of...regret fear unease. I wonder if maybe he'll get sick of me. I wonder if a few days in a row of seeing me will weary him. There are times when a small annoyance on my part will grow into worry that he's silently scheming on how to get more alone time (projecting, maybe?).

Last night, as we spent yet another hour chatting and watching Anthony Bourdain, he looked at me in a way that reassured me he's far from sick of me. Even as I try to keep my distance at times and leave him to his work, studies, or whatever it is he's doing, he'll approach me in a way that shows his longing for me. It surprised me that this morning that I was excited to see him again. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but as if we haven't seen each other in weeks, I can't wait to be near him again.

This past weekend, I babysat for friends, new parents of a 6-month old little girl. Normally, with her and other babies, I've got some magic touch (or extreme body heat, whatever). I'm a baby-monger, and this little one generally falls asleep or is exhausted with laughter when she sees me. No problem, right?

Wrong. She's experiencing some stranger anxiety, and I could not console her for the life of me. She was so genuinely distressed that I was not her mom. As I held her while she cried, slept, cried, slept, and cried some more for about 6 hours, it made me think of friends who are going through the adoption process... how they endure this for weeks at time as their children grieve the loss of their foster parents.

I thought about the weight of being a mother. Not that I have the slightest idea of what that really means yet, but I kept thinking of the deep and utter sadness this little girl felt that she could not see her mother. She looked everywhere for her, pushing my face away. I fed her, held her, sang to her, talked to her, but none of that mattered because I was not her mother.

And it hit me...as my arms burned and my lower back ached from carrying and bouncing little M...the weight of being a mother...the ability responsibility of having such an effect on another human being. This little baby was so desperate and lost without her mother, regardless of what I had to offer. Am I ready to be that mother?

I've always wanted to be a mother. I have dreams of pregnancy and motherhood. I imagined I would get married at 24 (I'm 29 now), and I would have children at 26. Obviously, I'm not pregnant or even married yet. But I'm more sure now that I'm not ready to give up this feeling of excitement for my evening, free to be with my soon-to-be husband, carefree and aimless. I still can't wait for motherhood, but being a wife is excitement enough for now.

Different Friends, Different Hats

Maybe some would disagree with me, and I suspect that many would, but I think that the notion of a "best friend" at my age doesn't really make any sense. Of course, if you're thinking in terms of the one person who is closest, nearest, and dearest in your life as far as proximity, time spent, and knowledge of one another, the Boy definitely fits the bill. He knows (and will come to know) more about me than even my family or closest girlfriends do, I probably spend the most time with him, and when my day winds down to an end, he's really the one I want to talk to about the happenings of that day.

But when I think of my girlfriends, I realize that they fulfill different roles in my life. I don't think that means that I use specific friends for these reasons or even that they are limited. I guess all I mean is that the closeness of a girlfriend isn't measured the way it used to be. In some ways, it can't even be measured anymore.

I have girlfriends whom I have known for more than a decade, maybe more than 2 decades, who may not necessarily be the first person I call when I have great news. I have girlfriends whom I've known for only a few years who I find myself desperately needing to talk to throughout my week. I have different girlfriends I call for advice, to vent, to get excited with me, to calm me down, to be angry with me, to understand me, to correct me, to cry with me, to laugh with me, to lighten my mood, or to make me feel grounded.

When my cell phone rings and Paramore's sound fills the room, the Boy often says, "You're soooo popular!" As someone who grew up painfully shy and intensely introverted, sometimes it can bother me. I'm not some shallow person who has a million friends and the depth of a cereal bowl!

But the truth is, I've learned not to rely on one single person to define my life anymore, and I don't think that's cynicism, I think that's reality. Maybe even maturity. I know not to get offended when one friend doesn't get me or says something to offend me, because they are the one who challenges and questions me. I don't get disappointed when an old friend doesn't quite understand my point of view, because she is the one who shares a long and deep history with me even if we don't look at the world the same way.

Sometimes I look at girls who have the same 2 girlfriends in all their photos and I wonder if I'm missing out on something big. Have I let conflict rob me of true friendship? Do I not know how to be a friend? (I'm sure I have a long way to go in that department anyway.) I do admire those relationships, but I'm not jealous. My "best friend" knows me intimately and deeply, even if that friend might have a different face from time to time.