It has been a whirlwind of a month! Since I last posted! On my blog! So much going on and okay yes, I’m stalling. Ugh, I’M SORRY I abandoned you. Again. But srsly, life has been especially lifey, what with a spectacular SWAN Day event this year (seriously, we women got the SHIT celebrated out of us, yo) and the overwhelming debut of Frankly Scarlett comedy at the Cabaret downtown. That was the biggest audience I have ever seen in that space. It made me feel special and tingly, like how Jareth the Goblin King did when I was 7.
Dance, codpiece, dance!
It’s all been so wonderful and delightful and uplifting and inspiring, especially because both events centered around women and how generally fucking awesome we are. So I think this is a perfect time to grab you by the bootstraps and drag you into the doldrums to talk about depression.
I CAN HAZ TRANZISHUN?
I suffered pretty bad depression my senior year of college. I’ll get into the details at another time, but what you need to know now is that I stopped going to classes. I withdrew from my regular activities. I slept all day and stayed up all night. The only things that kept me going that year were a poetry class I actually attended and my a cappella group. Only my closest pals really knew how bad it was.
After the effects faded and my symptoms became less frequent, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that something about it stuck with me for good. My highs were still high, but my lows suddenly seemed lower and heavier. Things that didn’t bother me before could now ruffle my feathers to the max. I caught myself throwing balls-to-the-wall tantrums over completely inane bullshit.
What do you mean there’s no more milk?
I JUST POURED MY CEREAAAAAAAAAWAHAHAAA
One of my worst blow-ups ever totally came out of nowhere. Joe and I had just left our (then) apartment and were walking down the steps in front of the building. I had been sifting through my handbag for about 10 seconds looking for my cell phone when OMFG WHERE IS MY PHONE I KNOW I PUT IT IN HERE AND NOW I CAN’T FIND IT NOBODY GOES ANYWHERE UNTIL I FIND IT SO BRB I’M JUST GONNA FLIP MY PURSE OVER REAL QUICK HERE AND SHAKE THE CONTENTS VIOLENTLY ONTO THE SIDEWALK PLEASE DON’T HELP ME OR TOUCH ME OR LOOK AT ME BECAUSE I AM A MONSTER.
My pal Lauren and I affectionately recall that incident to remind us of the simpler, more miserable times. It’s not the only bad eruption I’ve had — just one of the more memorable ones.
When I was still living with my parents after college, I got home from a haircut and used a hand mirror to look at the back of it in the larger bathroom mirror. Upon the realization that it was not at ALL what I requested and I had wasted my hard-earned (and at the time, scarce) dough on it, I proceeded to slam the hand mirror on the floor, diva style. Despite mom’s pleas to clean it up, the pieces of that broken mirror stayed on my bathroom floor for at least a week.
In which case the bad luck is 7 years of
“finding” shards of glass with your feet.
As I grow older, it feels like I’m growing out of this. Or maybe I’m just getting used to it. Oh, who am I kidding? You’re gonna have to ask my husband if you really want an accurate answer. After all, you wouldn’t want to upset me.
I’d love to hear about your last tantrum. I can’t possibly be alone in this, right? RIGHT?