august 16th, 2021

a year. it's been a year. 

 i've disliked augusts for a long time. it's sweaty. the columbia isn't even cool anymore. school starts and kills summer. and there are NO HOLIDAYS. 

but august sucked the worst last year when bob lost his battle with depression. i prefer thinking of it that way to suicide. my darling didn't want to die, he was just sick and tired of fighting a disease. but now it's august again....and i am paralyzed. 

i know this is a grief relapse; of course it is. it's not uncommon, especially when holidays or anniversaries come up. like the anniversary of his death. it's coming, and i entered august like a rabbit staring down a semi. my sleep is fucked again; it's seven am and i can't sleep. haven't slept all night. i find myself staring into the space; it's like my brain just....shuts off. it takes enormous effort to fill an ice tray or replace a toilet paper roll. i'm not crying. i'm not sad......i'm just.....numb. i've done nothing, for days.....and i am exhausted. and yet i can't sleep. and when i do finally sleep, i have terrible dreams. there are so many things i need to do. so many things i SHOULD do. and yet i don't. i smoke pot, and i watch vids i've already seen, and i play solitaire, and eat sunflower seeds one at a time. and that's it. that's all. the most complicated food i've prepared for myself in the past week is cereal. 

i don't know how to ask for help. i've tried. it is very difficult. i sent a text to my sister last week, telling her how blue i felt and asking her to come....but she didn't get the text until later. when she did, i was called, and we arranged to go have a meal together with mom. and it was nice....for a couple of hours. it was like being in a deep hole, and getting a sudden glimpse of bright sunshine before the darkness enclosed me again. it didn't fix anything. how could it?

i'd like to "shake it off", believe me. i have stuff to do. serious stuff. i need to find a job. i need to finish my staircase. i need to sell more stuff to pay my bills. but i don't know how to do any of that when dressing myself is my greatest accomplishment of the day. 

this will pass, i know. or so i've been told. but knowing that doesn't make the here-and-now any easier to endure. it's not that i want to die. it's that i don't seem to remember how to live.