Everyone liked Duke’s Christmas List post yesterday. And people loved my Thoughts in the Carline schtick from the other day and the Florida stuff. In fact, people still, to this day stop me and tell me how funny they think my Random Thoughts are, and we both laugh about how dumb I am. But what some of them don’t get is that when I’m at my funniest, when I’m full of that light-hearted banter, when I’m witty, or quick with a comeback, I’m at my darkest inside. And that’s why I’m writing funny right now, light and fluffy right now, because I’m in a serious case of the blues. And when shit gets serious, I hide behind humor. A lot of people do. Have you ever met a genuinely funny person who isn’t battling something? I haven’t. The absolute funniest people I have ever met, are all desperately trying to hide from something, and humor is their coping mechanism, and often times their shield.

The funny thing is, it didn’t occur to me that the blues was even here until I spent two mornings in a row writing silly stuff. Some of it I published on my blog, some I saved for a rainy day. Never mind that I’d been crying on the phone with my husband the night before. Never mind that my anxiety had me frozen with fear and I couldn’t sleep. Never mind the mood swings, the needing to be left alone, the Netflix binge of sad documentaries. Never mind, never mind, never mind. It was when I could only write stupid, light-hearted stuff, that I knew I was knee deep in a shit storm.

I texted a friend who happens to be in her own storm right now, and whom I desperately wish I could reach out and grab for just a minute, hold her close to me while our storms rage around us. I told her that I was writing funny stuff, and she asked what was wrong, and I vomitted all the things. Then I felt shitty for doing that to her when she’s going through what she’s going through. Jesus, why does this all have to be so hard all the time? Why can’t we go forward, forward, forward, instead of forward, forward, backward?

I can’t write serious stuff right now, unless it’s seriously about how I’m trying to combat this shit storm. I guess I’m writing my way through this because I honestly can’t write about other things I want to, need to be writing about. I can’t write about my childhood, because there’s something there, waiting to be discovered. I can’t write about the grief that kicks up ever time this year from the loss of a loved one. I can’t even write about the world right now, or finish that story about that place I lived, and how my mom had been there years before as a teenage girl. I can’t tell you about my sister sneaking me into a Bon Jovi concert. I can’t submit anything new for publication, because I can’t sit down long enough to write anything worth publishing, because if I do then I fall. Down, down, down, into a rabbit hole of darkness. Because it’s there, just sitting there. Waiting for me to write something, to say something, to trigger it in some way, and I’m trying desperately to hide from it. My shield is up. Way up. And I’m down.

I wish I was making you smile right now with some anecdote. I have them, I do. They’re laying dormant right now. I have so much to tell you really. But I think maybe today I’ve used up all my smiling potion, all my story-telling magic. I think I’m back to the sitting on the couch watching television until I forget what day it is. But tomorrow is a new day. And maybe it will be better. Surely it will be better. But if it’s not, that’s okay too. I’ll wake up from the fog one day soon. And you will too.

Take care of yourself, however that looks today.

❤

M.