So, that’s why they call it chemistry?

Hello friends, glad to have you back & happy to have you here/hear.

In my previous post I referenced some pretty heavy moments- suicidal ideations, depression, and lack of functioning. If you thought it was a lot reading it, imagine living it (I’m sure some of you can).  I am happy to report that within this last week it has been a lot more tame and stable. I’ve felt alert and present and able to complete daily tasks. Life seems more manageable. Thank yeezy for that, because I was not ready to handle another week of that.

This past week, while much easier to handle, was still full of moments I thought about sharing with you all. I had a lot of processing time, friend time, down time, bachelor nation time, and dating apps time. You may find yourself more interested in some of those things over other things on that list. I could go on for hours about the most recent bachelor season, but I won’t bore those of you not interested in it. To sum up my opinions though- they all suck, including Peter. Let’s wrap it up…

Speaking of one loser dating a bunch of people- this week I want to to discuss my dive back into dating. It’s what I get the most requests for, so I shall oblige the masses. I also like that I am being really ballsy and jumping back into dating during mercury retrograde. What an adventure. I had made it a personal goal to not date until after February, but you know, V Day came and I was like let’s just see, which then turned into scheduling dates. It all happened so fast. **Not really, I knew exactly what I was doing, so whatever. My main goal with taking a break was to clear my head and stop feeling so bogged down. I was ghosted twice in December and it took a toll. It is not cool to be ghosted during your birthday month. There should be a rule against it. But while I was treating myself on Valentines day, I thought you know what, I’m ready to get back out there and jump back on the ol’ dating horse. The wind blew, as I wrapped myself in my sheer sweater on the beach porch, just a single, 40 year old, divorcee, ready to date again. Sorry, went into my own little romcom there. Let’s get back to reality.

Because in reality, this is not a romcom at all. It would be like if a romcom removed all the rom, and only included com – that is how I would describe dating on the apps. The good news is though, that I am a big fan of comedy. Messages about my figure tend to take the lead. “MMM love those curves,” appear in bold letters, like it’s supposed to make me what? Drop my pants for them? I screenshot for my friends and occasionally insta and then don’t engage. Second funniest dudes are the ones who like to say hello and then nothing else for 4 months. Not exactly a ghoster because I didn’t invest any time in them, but like what are you doing? Why did you say hello? So mysterious, so funny. Then there are the people that literally didn’t read anything on my profile and ask me everything about what is already there. “So, where do you work?” Bro, it’s literally the first piece of info on there. Less funny, more annoying. This now leaves like 2 people who I actually have a conversation with. Eventually we meet and then we mutually decide if we want to keep meeting or play the disappearing act. Ooh, maybe it’s comedy and some mystery, a commyst™ if you will.

Like I said, I oddly love it. Not just the comedy of it all, but the whole meeting new humans and figuring this all out. Don’t quote me on this if in a year I’m still on the apps and it isn’t working and I am ded. Truly, my favorite part of the apps are the first few month or so. I’m just so full of hope and my grade A detective skills back online. Full systems go. No, I don’t mean detective work like stalking their social media, I mean in the sense of who they are and who they are in reference to me.

Each date, each person I meet or talk with, I learn more about myself. What I want and don’t want. I also just love meeting new people. I am the type on the apps (because everyone is a different type) to be like ‘lets meet up ASAP’. Yes, I am that girl. I want real conversation and I want it right away. You would be amazed by how many people are great at texting and not so great at talking and vice versa. Plus, I’ve seen catfish. Don’t even try to play me like that. Little tip for those in the same app boat, I highly recommend the coffee date. It’s the easiest, most low-key way to get to know people. One hour, over yummy drinks, without alcohol impairing judgement. Plus, to me it feels like a lot less pressure. It’s not this big formal date I have to dress up for. I’m getting coffee with a potential friend. Because what is a partner if not a friend that you also do romantic stuff with? (romantic = sex)

Even as I am writing this I am realizing the change in mindset I have had since taking my break. I’m trying to look at dating as more experimental than definitive. I am molecule A and I am adding different molecules to my equation until I find one that seems to make sense. Ya know, I really loved chemistry as a kid, so this is all making a lot of sense to me. Woah, is that why they call it having chemistry. What a lightbulb moment. I love when things just seem to come together.

I guess all of this is to say that we humans put a lot of pressure on ourselves all the time. Do this, don’t do this, feel this way, don’t feel this way and I just want to call some bullsh*t on it. Do I want to find someone special that I want to spend the rest of my life with, I don’t f****ing know. I don’t even know what I am doing this weekend, I’m not really interested in thinking about a lifetime. I don’t even know how long my lifetime is. Do I want to find a friend to do romantic stuff with who only wants to do that romantic stuff with me (still talking about sex)- yeah, I do. Am I over feeling bad that I don’t have that yet- absolutely. Which is precisely why I chose the featured image that I did: That feeling can kiss my a**.

To the ones that already have it, I hope it is a friend that you feel safe and healthy with. To the ones that don’t have it, I hope that you feel safe and healthy with yourself and try not to let society tell you that you’re doing it wrong, or that you need to be with someone, or that you need to feel a certain way. You’re doing great and you are exactly where you supposed to be right now. Be easy on yourself… and maybe review your chemistry notes from high school, could find something useful in there.

Oh, and if anyone, yourself included, is mean to you, tell them to kiss your a**. And that’s advice for everyone.

A[wo]men

 

Black History Month’s featured Black Artist:

“‘I woke up in this
In my skin
I can’t wash it away, so you can’t take it from me
My brown skin”

Melissa Jefferson (Lizzo), My Skin

My Skin was released by Lizzo in 2015 on her album Big Grrrl Small World. Lizzo is a fierce advocate for people and her song My Skin was born out of the desire to stand up against racial profiling. She has also made a lot of strides in fat activism often referring to body positivity in her music. Her references to self-love were a major influence in my life as soon as I listened to her. She has this way of making me feel beautiful in any light. No matter what I am doing, when Lizzo comes on my playlist it feels like she is a friend, telling me not to talk down to myself- ever. And lest us not forget that Lizzo, the queen, is single.

P.S. Excited to bring you our upcoming brave and honest story teller next week. She’s been through a lot and has a learned a lot along the way. I hope you come back to read her beautiful story.

P.P.S Yes, that is my butt.

300 Feet, Please

I have written several things at this point and erased them all. I wrote a poem about nightmares and decided it was shit. I wrote about my evening and thought it was boring. The reason I am hating everything right now is because none of it is honest.

If I am going to be honest, I want to lay down some ground rules:

1. I swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me Yeezy.

Okay that was it. That’s my only ground rule when it comes to telling the truth. And even though we are not in a court of law and could totally be lying to you, I hope you believe that I have my right hand on The Life of Pablo(2016) and my left hand raised.

Okay, I am just putting off the inevitable at this point. The cold hard facts that y’all are dying to hear. Well, here it is.

I don’t want to do this today.

I didn’t want to wake up. I didn’t want to write. I don’t want to get dressed. I sure as hell don’t want to go outside (it’s rain snowing..).

“Why?” you might ask. For starters, it is Sunday, Yeezy’s day of rest. Aside from that, it’s this little thing I like to call depression. As someone who works in the mental health field I don’t use that term lightly. I don’t mean today I am feeling sad; I mean today I feel like every breath I take, every move I make my depression is watching me. Is this what the Police intended for this song? It makes it feel much less creepy this way. I suppose though, depression is a creepy man watching your every move, ensuring that nothing gets in his way from keeping you down. Jokes on you depression, because after what feels like 200 years of this, I know how to handle you.

I pull out my restraining order and remember that you are supposed to stay at least 300 feet away from me at all times. Time to call in some back up. My back up in this scenario is ten fold. First I take every negative little thing he says to me and I twist back at him. “I don’t want to wake up today” he mumbles. In turn, I scream “I am waking up! Here we go!” He tells me that “I shouldn’t write today,” so I say “I AM GOING TO WRITE ABOUT YOU! HA!” Next form of back up is coffee, aka sweet beautiful nectar of life. Some may say this seems counterproductive, but without my coffee returning to my bed is an extreme possibility. After coffee comes the phone calls. I call my friends, I call my family, I call student loans, I call the phone company. I talk and talk and talk. I can’t afford therapy right now, so I utilize these free listeners. (And of course this blog is an outlet where I gather even more listeners!) I just like to be heard. Some days I exercise. This one is particularly difficult to fight him on because it never has been my comfort zone. I try to at least argue though.

Eventually, with all these forces combined he backs off to 300 feet. See my depression, I find, doesn’t fit the DSM definition. It comes and goes in waves, and it’s not cyclical in nature. I can’t predict it like my period. It’s not like “Oh, it’s that time of the month again! Here comes the depression. Break out of the ice cream ladies!” Sometimes it last for a day, sometimes it last for a week. I don’t experience mania when I don’t have it. I don’t all of the sudden have this overwhelming boost of energy. It is just subtly different. One day things feel really hard and one day they don’t. I’ve tried medicine, but it didn’t work for me. I assume this is because there doesn’t seem to be rhyme or reason to it and medication is all about rhyme and reason. I do feel obliged to say that I think that medicine can be a great tool for depression!

Of course my number one backup, the keeper of the keys if you will, is comedy. By this I don’t mean watching comedy, although Friends makes me laugh every yeezy-damn time. What I really love, love, love is making others laugh. Sometimes I think it makes people uncomfortable when I joke about my depression because in people’s head depression is some dark, shamed disease that should never be laughed at! But that’s just it, I am not laughing at it, I am laughing with it. There is a podcast called “The Hilarious World of Depression” (which I highly recommend) that talks about just this. It gets into the depths of not just depression, but a whole host of mental health diagnoses and guess what? People laugh.

The number one way depression likes to win is isolation. So, I blog about it. I listen to the podcasts. I spent a billion dollars on social work school to work with it. I surround myself in the hilarious world of depression. Every day that I avoid working with him, he wins.

For me its about working through it, not around it. I get through difficult times with community and laughter. Some people have different ways of getting through. Some people haven’t figured it out yet. This is why I decided to write about it today (& because I need to step up my poetry game before I go posting that shit online). Because maybe, somewhere out there, someone is having the same experience as me. And maybe this post helps someone. And maybe, just maybe, this post helped me.

Definitely, maybe it did help me.

Now depression, please back the eff up. 

**I would also like to say that if you are feeling isolated and it feels like the depression is winning and you don’t know where to start, reach out: 1-800-273-8255 (National Suicide Prevention Lifeline) **