Whew.

It’s been a long couple of weeks. Thanks to my friends for their tolerance of my moodiness lately. Just when I think I have a handle on my emotions, they pull the rug out from under me and I end up beating myself up for letting them. Of course, moving twice since June doesn’t help my temperament.

I haven’t done anything about putting my stuff away or organizing it really since I moved in because it’s just felt so overwhelming. I stare at the boxes, knowing that things will change when Mom and Dad get up here at the end of the month. I’ve just been mired in doubt and indecision and fear and pain and so many things I can’t even identify. I’ve been trying to journal about it but even that won’t come. I cannot write, I cannot speak of the things I am feeling and until I can, I can’t deal with them.

But I woke up today feeling stronger and better than I have in a while. Not all of life’s problems are solved nor do they need to be. I don’t know why I go through these bleak periods and maybe there is something more there than just pre-menopausal blues or the inherited depression that runs through our family.

I guess I can sum it up this way, with some of the things going on around me. First, my friend, Patty, has begun her “year of living dangerously” and I so applaud her for that She took a major step into that the other day and I was too far into my own funk to really let her know how proud I am of her and how brave I think she is for tackling that situation. I love you, LogiGal, and this is why I am so glad you’re in my life. Then my sister said something about how she took a year off when she left her second husband to just breathe and live and be. She recommended that I do that. At first, I was totally against the whole thing. What?! Take a year off! Do you know how far behind that’ll put me?! Are you nuts?

But in looking at both of these situations, I think I’m beginning to see what I can declare my next year as – the year of just living. I have spent almost the last 18 months or more struggling through the end of my marriage, moving out, moving four times, struggling to keep my head above water financially (thank God for my parents), struggling with my heart, fighting to keep myself going, battling depression so black and so dark that I’ve heard the call of the pill bottles more times than I can count. I’ve had my year and a half or more of living dangerously, of discovery, of finding and seeking and chasing. This next year needs to be about breathing, relaxing, giving in and really living the life I’ve been creating. I’ve built a really wonderful life but because I’ve gotten used to battling and fighting and struggling, I don’t know how not to do that. And taking my sister’s advice at face value, at first, made me resent it because I cannot take a year “off.” But looking at it more closely, I think I see what she meant. Take a year off of the struggle. Stop trying to solve all of my problems in one fell swoop. Step back and take stock without trying to put a label on things. Take the time to relax without pushing myself to be Wonder Woman and conquer all. Stop chasing the one who has my heart, let my heart live there and just leave it there until someone else comes to claim it. Stop beating my head against the wall and just be.

Yeah, that’ll be easy.

But I truly think that’s what I needed to hear. Just be. I’ve been trying to define myself and it hasn’t been easy. I feel like I have no identity. My family sees me one way, my friends see me another, my ex sees me completely differently from everyone else. Even the OOMA sees me in another way. Cute Boy sees me in a way I haven’t been seen in a long time. I’ve been trying to jam all of these versions of me into one solid, identifiable blob that is SUSAN. Instead, I just need to let susan out and see where she takes me. Stop trying to define myself by my work, by my friends, by the OOMA. Let the toddler in me out and see where she goes, what she discovers, what she wants to be when she grows up.

There is no urgency to the definition of me. It is an evolving task and I will continue to define myself and be defined by the experiences around me. And if I continue to let the darkness rule my life, I am going to lose those experiences. That darkness taints everything when it’s around, leaving every memory with a black mark on it and I need to change that.

I also realized, in regards to Cute Boy and OOMA, that, as we get older, relationships do get harder because we all have had such failure and such hurt behind us that it’s almost impossible to go into a relationship without wondering and worrying how it will turn out and how badly will I be hurt at the end of it instead of stumbling blindly into the abyss and just hoping we don’t drown. We’re constantly looking behind us, going, well, that didn’t work out, why should this? Why should I risk it? And as we get older, it’s harder and harder to get past that. I don’t know what the solution is or if there is one. I guess maybe letting go and not looking back might be a start. Clean slate. Leave the past in the past and see what the future holds. Be glad that I am loved in so many ways – by friends, my OOMA in his own very special way, by Cute Boy in that superficial, flirty way. Much love, all different, all wondrous and fulfilling. When I stand with OOMA and Cute Boy, I feel like a vampire, draining off their energy, filling myself up with it and sad to see it go. I just have to learn to take that energy at face value and enjoy it, and not think about when the next refill will happen.

I was thinking I feel like I’ve been on a bungee jump this past year and a half, leaping into the unknown below me, knowing there is a tether there but unsure just exactly how long that tether is, my heart in my throat, my breathe taken away. Just recently, I have reached the end of that tether and am hanging just above the ground, looking back up at where I started, thinking, holy shit, did I just do that? What was I thinking? And then the fear hits and the adrenaline makes you want to do something to get out of that harness and just put your feet on the ground again.

I can see the ground. And I can feel the person in charge letting the tether out so that I can plant my feet again on terra firma and get a grip on things before I make that long climb back up to the top and leap off again.

(I was going to write about chopping off my hair myself but I’ll save that for later.)