Coming down

I actually wrote this post a few days ago. I carry a little notebook around with me and write my posts on buses and trains - in those very rare moments alone.

Then of course I have to find a time when I can punch them into the computer (I sound like such a luddite) without anyone watching. As a consequence posts which are of the moment tend to lose their truth a little bit.

But I'm going to post this anyhow because of a comment to my last post about going to see Henry Rollins. In her comment Sleepless in New York expressed beautifully how I feel quite a lot of the time:

"Lately, I find myself fantasizing about what it would be like to be with a nondepressed, more optimistic and life-loving partner. ... I fantasize about an optimistic lover the way other women might fantasize about a good-looking lover."

It's like that for me too. Perhaps there's a market here for optimist porn (which sounds awfully like the name of a Transformer or something, but that's what happens when you spend most of your time with a 3-year-old boy).

Sleepless in New York asked me how I felt when I got home, after the rush of optimism I'd experienced. And what happened is that I crashed terribly. I went home and the contrast was stark and painful.

So without further ado, here was the come down, the Henry Rollins fallout:

I can feel it happening again. I am tired early but can't stay asleep. Tears make an appearance with little provocation. I cry on public transport. (Well, I live in New South Wales so perhaps that counts as extreme provocation).

Everything defeats me - the housework most of all. So I've just given up on it. Clothes lie abandoned wherever they happen to fall. Laundry hangs on the line for days. Dishes. Dust. Stovetop. Compost bin. Towels. Bathroom. Weeds.

My paid work is the easiest, more comforting part of my life at the moment. One foot in front of the other. No choice but to do it.

I am relying on playdates to keep my son engaged and happy. Less time alone together means less effort on my part. And I'm too spent to feel (very) guilty about that. Every hour to fill feels like a day.

I just want to sleep for a few days. I don't care where or how.

Flo