What if 5 years from now I’ve totally gone off the deep end? What if I join a religious movement or start selling protein shakes door to door? What if I start selling religious protein shakes door to door?

I listened to erupting sobs as the news spread. Darrell said the big man in the Maui shirt was in there crying hysterically, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him.

So, I’ve been packing. I’ve been moving. I’ve been unpacking. I’ve been enjoying our new surroundings while trying to not take stock of a family photo growing smaller, and smaller.

When you actually have depression, on a clinical level, somehow the whimsy of having a blue period fades and you just become annoying to the people near and dear to you. Hey there, bummer!

It tasted like rum, because, well…it was rum. And coke. And a lime. It felt foreign as it entered my system. Likely because it was 9:14 am on a Friday morning. I didn’t order it for myself, no.

And I’ve only been exposed to that, because I love stories and have sought them out since I was a child. And I did this, because I wasn’t interested in my own. Writing my own stories and reading those of others was an escape I didn’t know I was taking.

It’s a gentle give and take, a push and pull, and in my case, a threat and a cuddle.

There are some things you just have to like, otherwise people will look at you different. And I guess there’s really no problem with being different, but I’ve always been one to prefer coasting under the radar, observing and hypothesizing, and not flying my freak flag for all to see. Just my preference.

If I think hard enough I can see my street, feel my bare feet on the sidewalk, and taste the humidity in the air. I can see the lightening bugs and hear the crickets and I wonder if the phone is ringing. It could be for me.

You don’t hear much about the “we regret to inform you”s, which is all that I experienced. I applied to a dozen different schools, none of them in my state and all of them touting a grandeur that was foreign to me yet seemed to be beckoning me all my life. I was rejected from all of them.

I still wasn’t able to come to terms with the whole body morphing into a car port thing, but adopting… this I could do. Maybe.

It was dark and humid inside, and smelled of plywood and camping. I would lean against the sleeping bags and wait, hearing the winds howl and my sisters symphony of asthmatic breathing.

I felt like a pad of butter on a hot skillet. I just oozed my way up the jet bridge and into the gateway, then slid on over to baggage claim. My colleague asked why my lips were blue. I told him it was probably the pills and all that white wine.

A few posts back I wrote about how I decided to live my life with nothing to hide. I was open to the point that I felt empty. Like I had given all of myself away. I wanted pieces of myself just for me. This is when I started stock piling secrets.

It’s never black and white for me. Everything is murky. I believe in facts. But I also believe in mistakes. And I also believe that there are likely facts that are based on mistakes. This is where the problem lies.

She would open her mouth wide and jump into the water… and when the shock of the cold would subside, she would blink the chlorine from her eyes and look at me. We did not speak.

I asked my husband what he thought. He didn’t say a damn word, and maybe it’s in my head, but I swore I saw him almost wince a little bit at the sight of them. But what does HE know about fashion?!

Where does your validation come from? Is it mostly from yourself? If so, wouldn’t that be somewhat psychotic? Like throughout the day your mind is just telling you “GIRL YOU KILLED THAT SHIT! YOU ARE INTELLIGENT, CHARISMATIC, AND MAKE A MEAN EGG SALAD”. Reading that back just now…maybe it’s actually good.

So, the next time a friend calls to tell me about their day, their relationship, their worries…I’m going to listen to understand and not to respond. Why? Because I know all too well that second hand stories, opinions, and articles you read somewhere will ultimately seep into someone else’s subconscious, their dreams…their nightmares.