Heartbreak Feels Like

Heartbreak feels like horrible pains in your chest, like someone is stabbing you. And then crushing pressure. And you can’t breathe.

Heartbreak feels like you can’t stop crying.

Heartbreak feels like your stomach is twisted in knots and you can’t hold down any food.

Heartbreak feels like you pretended someone cared about you. Because you didn’t want to think about the alternative.

Heartbreak feels like finding the evidence of who they really loved.

Heartbreak feels like all the times they told you your writing was too long. That it bored them.

Heartbreak feels like your desire to write has been killed.

Heartbreak feels like you see all the times he read her work. And it’s so trivial, so nothing, it’s agony to wrap your brain around why he was so disinterested in your writing.

Heartbreak feels like a friendship you made up in your head. Because you needed a friend.

Heartbreak feels like everyone caring when you wrote your deepest secret. Except the one person whose shoulder you wanted to cry on.

Heartbreak feels like knowing you’re so fucked up no one will ever love you. You have been so damaged that no one wants to pick through the ruins of your life.

Heartbreak feels like a sled bumping into the back of your heels on a cold walk home at dusk. Crying because she forgot to pick you up and it’s winter and you’re not sure where you are.

Heartbreak feels like every birthday she never remembered.

Heartbreak feels like you’re afraid now to hit “publish.” Paralyzed because you realize nothing you’ve ever written is any good.

Heartbreak feels like your hands are shaking so much you took hours to type this.

Heartbreak feels like finding out your best wasn’t good enough. but someone else’s mediocre was a feast.

Heartbreak feels like it’s not just your heart. Your whole body feels broken.

Heartbreak feels like pushing away people who do love you.

Heartbreak feels like he wrote “that took my breath away” about her really bad poetry. And actually tasting your own vomit.

Heartbreak feels like she wrote a crappy, purposeless blog. And seeing him all over that blog. When he hasn’t read one of your posts. Not even the really funny ones.

Heartbreak feels like remembering how he approached you. Out of the blue. And wishing it never happened.

Heartbreak feels like your shoes are too tight. And letting your toes press hard against the inside front because if you tell her she’ll get angry that you need new ones.

Heartbreak feels like losing the only house you ever had. Because you grew up in a housing project. And having him say, “oh, you’ll bounce back.”

Heartbreak feels like he doesn’t even know it’s the only house you ever lived in. And that you grew up in a housing project. And that you won’t “bounce back.” Because he’s never read anything you’ve written.

Heartbreak feels like someone being mean to you when you’re at your lowest. When you just want them to hold you.

Heartbreak feels like you blew the chance of a lifetime. Many times.

Heartbreak feels like watching your best friend die of cancer.

Heartbreak feels like stealing stuff from your friends to buy drugs.

Heartbreak feels like a rhythm in your head that’s been playing since childhood: Love me, love me, love me, love me.

Heartbreak feels like you want to just get drunk and build a blanket fort, a personal video game sex fort. With hookers.

Heartbreak feels like you want to fuck all his friends.

Heartbreak feels like you probably will.

Heartbreak feels like you read everything he ever wrote. Because that’s what friends do.

Heartbreak feels like finally realizing, he’s not your friend.

Heartbreak feels like wanting someone to take care of you. Even for one day.

Heartbreak feels like realizing you have no idea what that even feels like.

Heartbreak feels like a rhythm that’s been playing in your head since the break up of your marriage: Alone, alone, alone, alone. Forever, forever, forever, forever.

Heartbreak feels like you were killed in your writing. And you’re not sure why.

Heartbreak feels like you know he thinks you’re “the crazy chick.”

Heartbreak feels like you’ve been in recovery from your childhood your whole adult life.

Heartbreak feels like you’re so exhausted from this. And understanding why you’re not worthy of love. It feels like this: empty empty empty empty.

Heartbreak feels like how he ridicules you for writing this. Because you have to expose every part of yourself, “down to the last blood cell.”

Heartbreak feels like getting beaten when you’re too young to fight back. And looking at your son’s small body and just thinking, “How?”

Heartbreak feels like getting raped in a shooting gallery on Avenue D. Because you deserved it.

 

Heartbreak feels like this: Over over over over.

Heartbreak feels like you can’t breathe. You cannot breathe. You have the evidence in front of your face of what you feared most and you cannot breathe. 

 

Heartbreak feels like you just found your kid’s journal. And he wrote yesterday, “Mom cried all day. She tried to hide it from me, but I’m not f***ing stupid.”

Heartbreak feels like your 11-year-old wrote “f***ing” in his journal.

 

Author’s note: 
Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is informally known as ‘broken heart syndrome’. It almost always happens to women and patients are typically in a critical state during the first 48 hours. The main symptoms are chest pain and shortness of breath. Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is a weakening of the left ventricle, the heart’s main pumping chamber, as the result of emotional stress.

 

I know I always write something here. It just seems stupid now. 

15 Things I Think But Would Never Say Out Loud

 

1. Congratulations on your engagement. Your fiancé gave venereal warts to every housewife at the gym. His ball sack is a hot bed of disease and infection.

2. If I can’t afford it, and I have to have it, I’ll just shop lift it.

3. Why are you so engrossed in your cell phone conversation? Are you a transplant doctor awaiting a donor heart? Someone could strap a pair of cymbals to their feet, and kidnap your child and you would be oblivious.

4. No, it’s not a “difficult age.” Your kid is an animal. We’re in a restaurant, so please, don’t just stand there while he caterwauls like someone shitting farm equipment. I would like to enjoy my meal. If you don’t learn to control him, I will cut you and dance in the blood.

5. I know being morbidly obese is horrible and challenging in a million ways. and it’s probably glandular and I’m sure you’re a lovely human being. But in the mean time, stop blocking the entire aisle at the fucking supermarket. The regular sized people need food, too.

6. Oh my God, your baby is UGLY. SCARY ugly. Did they yank his head out with forceps? Is it too early to consider plastic surgery? Get that shit fixed so he doesn’t scare the other babies.

7. For the love of everything holy, please brush your teeth. Your breath smells like feces. Would you like a tic tac, or some toilet paper? While you’re deciding, I’ll be over here donning an oxygen mask, so you don’t singe my eyebrows.

8. No. Your kid is not a “bad test taker.” He’s just dumb. Remember dumb kids? Yes. They still exist. You own one. You should sterilize him so that he does not reproduce.

9. Stop being so incredibly nasty to me, PTO whore. Our kids go to school together. If you continue to act bitchy to me, so help me God I will fuck your husband six ways till Sunday.

10. Place don’t sit next to me, please don’t sit next to me, please don’t – oh my God, you smell like Big Foot’s Dick. Your BO could be used in international bioterrorism. Next time you go out in public, please take a shower, heathen.

11. Heroin is awesome. It’s so convenient that the dealers are selling it behind all the high schools. And in those economy-sized little $5 baggies.

12. Good thing I am not a crazy person, or this Godforsaken supermarket parking lot would be littered with the dead.

13. I know you just farted. My eyes are watering and suddenly the room smells like an exploded septic tank.

14.  I could just totally punch you in your misshapen annoying face and run away because you don’t know me and you couldn’t report me if you wanted to.

15. Oh, dear Lord. I look ridiculous. Am I really wearing a backwards baseball cap? Forgive me, world. It’s a frantic attempt to beat back death. In a few short years, I’m going to be shopping in Forever 21, trying to get a discount with my AARP card.

 

Do you think things you would never say out loud?  C’mon. Your turn.
Talk to me.   I’m listening.

Alimony – The American Housewife’s Wet Dream

HOORAY! I JUST LANDED MY FUTURE EX-HUSBAND

ALIMONY IS BULLSHIT.

Let me qualify.

In the state of New Jersey, we still have antiquated laws that require the payor (typically the husband) to pay LIFE LONG alimony to the payee. (typically the wife).

They were established in the 1940’s and 1950’s – when virtually all women were stay-at-home mothers and men the family breadwinner. Few career opportunities existed for women.

Today, women currently make up half the workforce in America.

Yet, a woman who has chosen to be a stay at home mother often walks away from a divorce with a lifetime meal ticket.

Even Powerball winnings end after 20 years.

 

FIRST: I’m an opponent of alimony grants in no-fault divorces initiated by the non-breadwinning spouse.

No fault, meaning one spouse just “got tired” of the other. He chewed too loudly. Left the toilet seat up.

And now, this chicken hoe can just hang out while her ex-husband busts his ass supporting her in the style to which her chicken hoe ass got accustomed.

 

I have a friend. Let’s call her Jennifer. Because that’s her name.

She decided she was more attracted to the 27-year-old meathead trainer at the gym than to her 40-year-old husband (duh!)  And divorced him, after 9 years of marriage.

But she gets to ride that gravy train forevah.

Her ex has to keep her in her house, and her Jaguar. She complains when there isn’t enough money for her Botox.

I’m tempted to cut open a rusty can and inject her face with the botulism to shut her up.

 

A lot of women around here choose to stay home with the kids – just because of that pot of alimony at the end of the rainbow.

Trust me, they have motherly instincts like Medea.  There’s an especially nauseating subdivision of parasite who stays at home with the dog even after their kids go off to college.

Often, it’s against the wishes of their spouse, and it’s ALWAYS so they can later collect lifetime alimony.

 

There are sometimes good reasons for a spouse to receive permanent alimony, such as having a disability.

I’ve personally never witnessed this – unless being a complete selfish bitch is considered a disability.

They set up a life-long imbalance with profound adverse effects on the others affected by the “agreement”: their children, their ex, and any new family he should have.

This continues until the demise of either party or the remarriage of the recipient.

The payor dies by working TO DEATH because his wife will NEVER remarry her live-in boyfriend.

Several states have passed laws that allow for the modification or termination of alimony if the recipient is living with another person.

Here in New Jersey, my friend gets to travel to the Caribbean with her muscle-bound live-in boy-toy on her ex-husband’s dime.

I’m in favor of Rehabilitative Support/alimony.

This is awarded for a short period and is meant to help a spouse “rehabilitate” himself/herself.

YES. This is what I’m talking about. Cap this shit off after a few years, and we’re good.

The courts really need to evaluate all of these divorces carefully on a case by case basis. But they don’t.

In New Jersey, vague alimony guidelines and interpretations only promote lucrative litigation to the multibillion dollar divorce industry and use court resources that are paid for by taxpayers.

There are other states which still grant spouses lifetime alimony.

 

I’m primarily concerned with my home state, where these Draconian laws are the legal equivalent of a sociopathic serial killer.

They’re killing people who are married to heartless opportunists.

They’re killing people who are forced to remain in loveless marriages.

They’re killing the concept of marriage altogether – and helping far too many young men swallow the red pill of the manosphere, and reject the idea of marriage altogether.

They’re killing the spirits of the children who get to bounce between savagely hostile parents embroiled in their own materially-driven War of the Roses.

The worst crime?

Girl, where’s your pride? We fought hard to be considered equal to men. Where’s your self respect? What kind of example are you setting for your children?

You’re killing the entire feminist ideal of the empowered woman who can take care of herself on her own.

YES. SHE CAN.

 

I know many women sacrificed their education and careers to raise families.

I know that women feel they can’t just transition to the workforce after being out of it for so many years.

Here’s the thing.

YES, YOU CAN.

1. Go back to school. Vocational, preferably, since a college degree is the equivalent to a big honking nothing these days.

2. Start the transition before you get the divorce. Even if you’re happily married, once your kids are a little older, and in school all day – don’t you WANT to work part-time? Or take some classes?

The SAHM where I live play tennis and shop an awful lot. They could work a college class or two in between lip injections and hair extensions.

3. Do anything. I don’t mean, go on the stroll. But the women who clean houses drive cars nicer than mine. Are you above home health care, house cleaning, babysitting? Be resourceful.

The woman who watched my son when I went back to work never went past high school. She watched 4 kids in her home, and made bank.

Some people are just “above” jobs like housecleaning. I went to a prestigious college, and I would work at Mickey D’s to put food on the table if I had to.

Money is money. It’s called a work ethic, women.

I’m not suggesting that a minimum wage job will pay all your bills. But it’s something. Stop acting like you’re incapable of work just because you think you’re all that and a bag of Skittles.

 

Recently, my friend argued a real-life example with me, against alimony reform.

Her friend was married for 25 years and was 55 years old when her spouse filed for divorce. She had devoted the “prime” years of her life to her family.  Based on the new alimony proposal, permanent alimony could stop at a retirement age of 65 or 67.

It could mean she would only receive alimony for 10 years.  After retirement, doesn’t she have the right to maintain a certain lifestyle? What is she supposed to do?

MY answer:

First – You’re 55, not DEAD.

If you were married for 25 years – could you not have begun to re-enter the workforce at some point in your marriage?

I’m not suggesting that the mom simply disappear into a full-time job when her children are teenagers.

In fact, I don’t like what I see in homes where both parents are away full-time and teenagers are left completely unattended.

Teens need guidance, and someone needs to be “minding the store.” But at some point, you must start re-building your life for when your kids leave for college.

You won’t be a SAHM then. You’ll just be a sloth.

Second – Your lifestyle will change. I’ve been rich, and I’ve been poor. Rich is nicer. But life is life. Roll with it.

Third – There are men who have to re-invent themselves at 55.

My son’s school has just informed us that starting next year, there will be no more hard copy textbooks. Only online.

That smells like an entire industry out of work to me. And a lot of men, many of whom are in their 50’s, are going to have to figure out how to feed their families.

I’m sure it will be hard for a woman to re-enter the workforce at 55.

DO IT ANYWAY.

 

Let’s play Devil’s Advocate, shall we?

Let’s say, the husband totally wants out of the marriage because he’s decided he’s no longer in love.

Should he then be forced to keep her in her pre-marriage lifestyle simply as a function of a now-defunct union?

What if the woman is an alcoholic psycho bitch? What if she’s abusive and unfaithful?

 

Let’s say she’s none of those things.

If a man has to pay a woman to maintain the creature comforts he provided for her while they were married, shouldn’t the reverse be instituted? He was the breadwinner, he’ll keep winning that bread.

You were the homemaker. Go to his house every week, clean it, do his laundry, cook some meals,

And have sex with him.

I think that’s fair.

 

Currently, there are many people who are working hard to change the laws in New Jersey. Good luck with that.

It took until  April 2009 for Jon Corzine, then-governor of NJ, to sign into law changes in the alimony statutes which would bar alimony payments to parents who kill, abuse, or abandon their children.

 

In case you’re wondering why I’m so passionate about this subject –

THE BIG REVEAL:

I’m not divorced. My Ex and I have been separated – over 3 years now. And ALIMONY is one of the factors that has been preventing me from finalizing my divorce.

I was the breadwinner in our marriage.

Ladies, girls – Do yourselves a favor. Learn from my mistake.

I don’t care if right now, if you don’t have one red cent. I have 2 very important words for you:

PRE NUP.

Make sure that there will be an equitable split of assets based on what was earned, and most importantly, eliminate spousal support.

You amazing, talented women are going to write best sellers. Or start a company. Or Invent something cool. Have a huge hit song.

I believe in you.

And after you’ve put all your blood, sweat and tears into something like that, there is NO reason why you should be punished for your diligence, sacrifice and success by having to support an ex husband.

 

And ladies – have respect for that hard-working husband of yours. It’s a lot of pressure on a man to support a family.

Remember, it turned this:

 

Into this:

 

How do you feel about alimony?  Has it impacted your life, or the life of someone close to you?
Do you know any women who are paying or have to pay alimony?
Talk to me. I’m listening.

21 Things I Irrationally LOVE

There are quite a few list posts going around.

So here are is a list of 21 Things I Irrationally Love.

I try to explain them. Which is paradoxical, because, by definition, they are irrational.

 

1. Patti Smith. She melded poetry with kick ass rock and roll, helping to define the punk/underground rock scene. My brother put her debut record, a 45-rpm single, “Hey Joe” with “Piss Factory” on the B side, in my hand when I was 11. This is why I am the way I am

2. Advanced Math. Give me ridiculously hard math problems and my brain lights up like a pinball machine. Numbers make sense in a way that life does not.

3. Movie Previews. If I’m at the movies with Little Dude, we have this thing we do where we rate them. Loudly. I love the stuff he’ll say. “A Must-See!” “Coming to a Cable Box near you!” “Emotionally manipulative!”

4. Yoga. We start chanting at the beginning of a class and I feel like I’m in a cult. Next they’re going to ask me to leave all my worldly possessions at the door. And the teachers say crazy shit. “Trust issues are stored in the hips.” The most irrational thing is loving Hot Yoga. It’s like playing Twister in a sauna. I feel like I’m being punked. Did I really pay to lay in a crumpled heap of my own sweat? Yes.

5. Rock Tee shirts. Especially concert ones. My collection is irrationally important to me. The CBGB’s shirt I’m wearing in my Twitter profile pic is 25 years old. I’ll die before I stop wearing that. As a matter of fact, I’d like to be buried in that.

6. CBGBs. I mourn its passing like a dead relative. It had, hands down, the BEST sound system on the New York club scene. It was a dive bar with cheap drinks, and my all-time favorite club. And I loved Hilly Krystal (the owner). I don’t give a flying fuck what everyone thought of him, because:

A. That club was the birthplace of New York punk rock and
B. That man covered my passed-out ass with a blanket on more than one occasion. So have some respect, yo.

7. Dancing. If there’s no excuse to do it, like being at a club or a wedding, I’ll make one up. At parties even when no one else is. Store aisles if a really good song comes on. My kid goes bonkers with embarrassment. Too bad. Payback for all those times he did embarrassing shit in stores when he was a toddler.

8. Fender Guitars. The sexiest guitars ever made. The Guitar of Rock Stars (okay, argue with me, Les Paul fans!) Whispering “Stratocaster,” “Telecaster,” in my ear practically constitutes foreplay. Looking at pictures of Fender guitars online is almost as good as porn. I said almost.

9. Teenagers. I’m a teenager locked inside a grown woman’s body. It’s High School Revisionist History. Because now I’m so cool, they all want to be/dress/act like me. I’m finally at the cool lunch table. I’m the fucking QUEEN of the cool lunch table.

10. Louis C.K. Not just his stand up. I adored his first show – “Lucky Louie.” It ran on HBO about 8 years ago and was cancelled after one season. But that was a great mistake, like Columbus getting lost and accidentally discovering America. Because after that, he went back on tour, and from there he had his ascendancy to stardom.

11. Black leather clothing. The standard fare – jackets, vests, pants. But I have a black leather hat that my friends call my “gay man’s hat.” And – black leather shorts. Don’t judge. The last time I wore them, my son told me I looked like a “bad Girl Scout.” He has no idea what that even connotes. Out of the mouths of babes.

12. New York City. I’m a die-hard New Yorker. It’s my identity regardless of my zip code. My 10-year-old already knows the NYC subway system. He believes himself to be a New Yorker, although I’m not sure if this can be genetically passed on?

13. My son. Little Dude. This kind of love is so irrational, it’s hard to articulate.
He’s hilarious. Weird. So smart. Feisty. Lovable.

He’s multi-talented. He can play the recorder worse than anyone you EVER heard. He also drinks soda with his eyes.

Oh, shit. He’s sitting here, kicking my ass at Jeopardy, and just saw the part about the recorder. He wants me to change it, and is now demanding $1.00 from me. He made me sign a contract which stipulates that every time I mention him on my blog, I have to pay him $1.00.

14. Baked goods. All kinds. Cookies, cupcakes, doughnuts. I could go into a diabetic coma from eating an entire cake. One cookie is like a gateway drug to the whole box.

15. The Misery Index at the gym. This is my nickname for how miserable you can make yourself while working out. Ever do a leg workout that made you want to yak? That’s a High Misery Index. I love pushing myself to where I feel like I might actually vomit. It’s a Thing.

16. Very muscular arms with ink. This has led me to do other irrational things.

17. Seasons changing. It’s a symbol to me that all things change, all the time. That I am capable of change.

18. The feel of a book. I just don’t enjoy holding a Kindle or a Nook. They lack the visceral sensation of holding the real thing in your hand.

It’s like – a dildo will do the job. But it’s not the same as a penis. You feel me?

19. The sound M&Ms make in a dish. I’ll pick them up in a bowl, and let them fall back down, just to hear that sound that they make. It’s like the foreplay leading up to eating them.

20. Indian Food. Specifically, on 6th street in NYC. The whole street is one long block of Indian restaurants. You walk down the street and smell cardamom and hear sitars. And you’re not even high.

21. The movie “The Graduate.” A great movie. An incredibly well written script. Some really amazing camera angles and shots. Phenomenal acting.

The back story is inspiring. The main character is a handsome blonde jock, like a Robert Redford type. And against all odds, Dustin Hoffman is cast in his first movie role. Totally against type. And he rocks that shit.
After the premiere, an older woman sees him in the lobby and tells him, “Young man, your life will never be the same again.” And it wasn’t.

I had trouble stopping at 21 things. I wanted to add a whole bunch of your names, too.

What are some of the things you love irrationally?
Talk to me. I’m listening.

This is Patti’s cover of “Hey Joe.” She melds her interpretation of what she believes kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst went through, with the rock classic, “Hey Joe.” Un-fucking-believable.

This is NOT a blog…………It’s a LIE.

I’m brain deep in a conspiracy of lies.

A nastified little gremlin lives in the deconstruction zone of my confident facade.

like this, only with anal warts and horrible breath

His mission: expose my prodigious self doubt by verbally annihilating me with meticulously fabricated lies.

He’s good, too – he’s hot boxing his ditch weed, playing Flappy Birds, and killing me softly, without even breaking a sweat.

And to shut his FAT MOUTH up, I stop feeling.

Which perpetuates more lies.

And then I hide it all in an extravagant online cover-up.

Quite a network of lies.

I get dressed to go to work, and he says,

“Motorcycle boots?  Grow UP, you fashion magazine ‘DON’T.’ Go home and rot until your AARP card comes, loser!”

And then the black vortex sets in.

DEPRESSION.

But I can lie. And hide behind a gravatar and a whole lot of snarky comments.

I lie about the secrets I’m living, and the ones that infiltrate the grooves of my brain.

The Cycle begins…

Taste deafness. Everything tastes the same. Like nothing. When pizza tastes like fish, is there any reason to eat? So I don’t.

Brain fog. I lose my car keys/ wallet / train of thought / that thing I put on the thing / the – wait, what was I typing?

Forty-eleven voice mails about snow days and delayed openings. I end up bringing my kid to school on President’s Day.  A national holiday.
Now I get to keep my crown as Neighborhood’s Weirdest Mom.

I can’t bring myself to wash my hair. That movement of my arms is too uplifting and victorious. Or I’m out of shampoo. Whatever. It’s a THING. I go for weeks.

Where will we go?

I brush the shit out of it, and wear backwards Kangol hats I own in every color. They were my signature look when I performed spoken word.
In the 90’s.

Steve, once they sell them at Marshalls, they’re NOT cool.

I look more pathetic than that director of Pulp Fiction, what’s his name, and him wearing a Kangol was how the term “asshat” was invented. But Who Cares?

I’m just deleting these from now on.

NO sleep. I drift off at gray milky dawn. The music of everything just stirring to life is an ironic lullaby precisely 90 minutes before I have to get up to get my kid ready.

I’m OVER this. He’s “gifted,” he can put a damn bagel in the toaster oven.

Mama please don’t sign the papers.

My students are looking at me funny. Check it, I know I look like a slump buster right now. What you should be worried about is that my brain is on planet Zorfly.

So I have no CLUE how to explain what the horizontal translation of the equation of a function on the XY coordinate plane is. Which means you’re FUCKED.

I stay in bed. I cancel work. I don’t leave the house unless I have to. For therapy. To pick my kid up at school. That’s the worst.

These women spend their days grooming to go home to husbands they never sleep with. How much eyeliner do you need to buy cold cuts?

I haven’t bathed in 2 days, my hair is in dirty dreds, this is the third day I’m in these clothes and

I smell like a cat that got fucked over a garbage can.

or a dumpster

My shrink says my depression tells these lies:

1. I don’t matter

2. People don’t care

3. I’m an imposter

.

Number 3 is the Gremlin’s specialty mind fuck.  It’s called “Imposter Syndrome” and it means I can internalize nothing I’ve accomplished.

My therapist is financing a beach house off of me and my Imposter Syndrome.

Number 2 – maybe, people don’t care?
Which is why I’m took Xanax to hit “Publish.”

Dr. Beach House wants me to reach out to people, but I’ve been independent since I was 16. I don’t like asking for help. I don’t want to be rescued.

But I’m over this Halle Berry Gothika nightmare.

I call my IRL BFFS. They don’t quite know what I’m saying; part sobs, part Barsoomian. They listen anyway. Dor sha-pan

Email is better. If I can feel my finger tapping the keys, I exist. I reach out.

To YOU.

And YOU are why I’ve healed enough to write this.

I get emails; offers to Skype or talk on the phone.

And each response is like novocaine in an excruciating impacted wisdom tooth.

The absence of pain is a beautiful thing.

TwinDaddy tells me there’s no need to suffer alone.

Jennie wants to rescue me from the abyss and mail me cupcakes.

Rara talks to me about the healing power of blogging. And helps me get this damn post up.

Sheena reminds me she’s always there if I need her.

Matticus tells me I’m amazing, and that I am LOVED.

Beth tells me she’ll walk in my rain, hell, she’ll hold the umbrella.

Guap reminds me that depression is a lying bastard.

REDdog is brilliant.
I told him I feared writing this, that no one might read it, and he understood. Because hate, he said, is not the opposite of love.

Indifference is.

The truth is, when you’re ill is when you find out who your friends really are.

Yes. I said it. This is…

A mental illness.

It’s “situational.” It happens when my life implodes.

My illness is depression combined with some OCD combined with an urge to self harm.

Self-harm creates distance from emotional feelings. Picking until there’s blood is a distraction from the agony in my head.

Self harmers are encouraged to wear rubber bands around their wrists.

Last night, my kid and I are watching a movie and

SNAP! SNAP! 

OUCH!

That sucker did the trick.

Luckily my son is ADHD and he fidgets with SO MUCH SHIT he’d make Ghandi want to punch a cow. So, he just goes with it.

We had chips and salsa.

I chopped jalapeno pepper in my salsa. It stung like fiery hell. I was choking and snotting and tearing up. But it doesn’t scar.

My kid thought it was hilarious.

My gremlin popped in,

“Look at you, sad-dy face, your life is WORTHLESS. You’re watching a stupid hip hop movie with your ten-year-old, you know you turning him into a homosexual, right?”

Only I’m not even watching the movie.

I’m imagining myself

SLAMMED!

Hard by the tractor of an 18 wheeler. I bet that would be better than car sex, which I normally dig, cause how many things do we own that are both an object AND a location?

I’m imagining

BANG!

The back of my head blown away, big time, full-time, by a 45 caliber Glock, not some pussy “handbag” 22. I’d hold the gun sideways in my mouth, gangsta style.

This is suicidal ideation. It’s an OCD thing. People with suicide ideation don’t usually try to commit suicide. I personally have no interest in dying.

I just have these images.

They’re comforting.

BANG! DONE!

Sometimes, for me, they’re pleasurable to the point of erotica. I’d be jacking off to them if I could feel my vagina.

And sometimes frightening.

Which is why I can’t drive to my bestie’s house and lay on her couch while she feeds me tea.

I’m afraid to drive 100 miles.

Between snapping rubber bands, replaying my erotic deathscape, and blowing jalapeno snot out of my nose, who has the energy to shampoo?

Little Dude asks, “Mama, how exactly during intercourses does the sperm fertilize the egg?”

WHAT THE FUCK?

“Where did you learn that?”

“Health class.”

“They’re teaching THAT in 4th grade?”

“Well, only to the kids whose parents signed off on it.”

That’s what happens when you’re in a depression. You sign things you have no memory of signing.

Now my blog isn’t a lie.

I’m sitting here.

Filthy haired.

Under my blankey.

Under eye circles like Uncle Fester.

My kid’s googling “intercourses.”

Number 1 IS a lie.

I matter.

Because-

1. You’re reading this, and maybe you feel less alone?

2. I’m my son’s only mother.

He gets all I can muster. At night, when we cuddle, he strokes my face and tells me how much he loves me.

That’s how I know I matter.

Everyone keep saying it’s been such a hard winter, and I’ll feel better when it’s spring.

I personally love the fall.

Did you know that leaves don’t actually change color?

Those are the underlying colors of the leaves.

They’re just covered in green, like a veil, because of the chlorophyll. In the fall, the leaves stop producing chlorophyll.

The green veil lifts.

And what remains are those brilliantly vivid colors of fall leaves.

They were there, all the time.

They were just covered.

Quentin Tarantino! That’s his name! Awesome flicks!

But he looked like an idiot in those hats.

I’m SO washing my hair.

Author’s note: I’ve been listening to Lenny Kravitz’s debut album Let Love Rule compulsively. Fuck Cinna in Hunger Games. Kravitz is a genius songcrafter. Played every single instrument on the record.

This track is dirty funk; a retro ode to 70’s R&B. This dude can pocket a bass groove; he’s got the raw, gritty vocals; and I dig the 60’s uplifting Farfisa organ at the bridge. It gives me hope.

“And all I do, is sing the blues…”

Do you ever get depressed?  Or know someone who does?
Talk to me. I’m listening.