Move On

Entry 1    10:38 p.m. 5.12.2022

In the cell phone lot. Leiney's plane landed 30 minutes ago, but the jet way is broken. That I have left the house is a minor miracle. I'm curled up tighter in my house than a hermit crab in a shell two sizes too small. 

The doctor was good the other day. Follow-up next week. My weight concerns were validated, I stepped on a scale. It was a talking scale. It kept repeating "one at a time, one at a time." 

I got new medicine prescribed, not a bad thing. However, I haven't managed to get it together to pick it up.  Got a reminder call today from the pharmacy. The irony wasn't lost on me that Jenny's meds were never ready on time at that place.

People calling and texting. People asking to come over or for me to go out. I just can't. Not in that space. It goes with the territory of my depression. I will force myself out eventually, but it is going to take time. Please don't take this personally, and I appreciate all the love, I am just shut down.

Entry 2    12:37 p.m. Friday the 13th.

“Melancholy is a low kind of delirium, with a fever; usually attended with fear, heaviness, and sorrow, without any apparent occasion.”


Beach’s Family Physician, 1861.

I am honest and open about my depression. It is a black ⚫️ hole. It pulls all joy in, it is inescapable. Each day friends and family reach out. I maintain silence.  I am moved beyond words. Literally. Please know, distant friend, close relative, I am here. I am breathing. I ache all over. Ache. All. Over. Everything and nothing make it worse. Nothing seems to be able to lull the light from its greasy maw. Today my sisters-in-law tried to visit.  I politely declined. Friends invited me out, I kept silent. An old friend asked to come by earlier this week. Not a peep from me. And on and on.

Tori Amos covering Leonard Cohen and then Chris Isaak blares in the background. It takes me back to Jenny in New York when she was pursuing her masters in special education.

Edgar Degas, Melancholy, 1876.
 We were split up, intentionally. I was sending her love letters, love poems and life updates using the rudimentary internet of the time. I didn't remember doing this, but discovered the missives in a file this morning while searching for legal documents. Jenny had saved them. All of them in a file folder labeled, "Sentimental Things."

Those days seem like two lifetimes ago. 




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