Has anyone seen my get-up-and-go?

[Dawn of Hope]

Hi, ladies, thanks for checking in and for your suggestions. I appreciate averyone who posts to me...I spend so much of my time completely alone (except for my cats) that I sometimes feel that there is nobody else out there at all, much less anyone who gives a *********** about me.

I have been communicating with the wedding coordinator (and the stationery designer) about this issue with the invitations, and I will be talking directly with the bride on Monday. I think the coordinator and designer understand and appreciate where I'm coming from, and things seem to be calming down (I have been working with the designer for a long time, but this is the first project I have done with this wedding coordinator). I received payment for the balance of the invoice yesterday, and I'm going to go ahead and deposit it, but the client will be getting some sort of reimbursement or credit for other materials (the expectation is that she will be having me do place cards for her as well, and maybe some other things too). I will see what I can come up with as a special bonus piece of calligraphy to appease the client; that is a good idea, and was also suggested by one of my fellow calligraphers.

Other than that...I am struggling along, trying to get my act in gear but not being able to find the gearshift. It's at times like these that I think about the "glass half full/empty" concept. I could say that my sleep schedule is totally screwed up for no good reason and therefore I'm exhausted a lot, I'm procrastinating big-time on a lot of important things in my life, I know that my behavior is being negatively influenced by my depression but I don't think there's much I can do about it, I'm crushingly lonely, I have slacked off on my exercise, and my bulimic tendencies are making themselves felt...and that would all be true. I could also say that I am quite healthy physically and in pretty good shape, I feel that overall I am doing what God is telling me to do regarding my M, I have plenty of resources to help me if I will just use them, and there are people who care about me even if they don't contact me all the time. That would all be true too.

How do I break out of this rut and start to LIVE? And more importantly, CARE about living? 'Cause I really don't, and haven't for years. I keep hoping that I'll come down with some quickly fatal disease that isn't painful. I've more or less come to the conclusion that I am not going to kill myself, because it would just be wrong and I really don't want to run the risk of going to that hot place in the afterlife, but I'm beyond eager for God to take me out of the game. The last time I actually felt that it was a good thing I was alive was so long ago that I don't even remember how it felt. Now I feel like I am just marking time, twiddling my thumbs while waiting for the lights to go out.

I rarely talk to people in my RL about this stuff, because it makes people uncomfortable if you tell them you want to hurry up and die. I used to talk to my H about it, but it took years for me to start telling him how I felt about this, since I was always afraid that if I revealed to him what I was really like, he wouldn't want me any more. Guess what? It took a while, but that's exactly what happened. Is anyone surprised that even if I did feel that it would be okay to look for a new partner...I have NO faith that anyone would actually want me?

Sometimes I think I should just stop talking entirely...even I get (more) depressed listening to myself! Welcome to the surreal world of clinical depression, where all paths lead to the Pit of Despair...which has an alter ego as a black hole (meaning that nothing ever escapes it). You can smack me if you like, but if you do, give me some practical advice that goes beyond "Oh, just get over yourself already, will you?" If I could do that, I would have done it...SOMEtime in the last 30 years. Likewise for all the "simple" treatments for depression, like ADs and exercise. But here I am, still stuck.

Now I am going to go have some breakfast, defined as the first meal of the day...even at 10:45 p.m.

Peace,
Dawn