Hello, I am Here Now. Alone Without a Sound.

Springtime

I’ve been trying for about three weeks to post this blog, and the words still just won’t come out right. I hate to admit what I’m about to say. In my mind, admitting this shows weakness and self-centeredness, but I need to get it out, once and for all, so I can be done with it and move on. Long story short, I’ve been severely depressed for the past six months. Everyone who knows me knows that when something is wrong, I close up instead of getting it out. So, here it is… Losing “Molester” was devastating to me on more levels than I’d like to come clean about. I felt like I not only lost my home, but my identity as well. Friendships and relationships were formed in that house. Beautiful music was made, birthdays were celebrated, and life time bonds were formed. It was the central place where we all met before we would go out, and where many of us would sleep after a fun and exciting night together. Most of all, it was my refuge after losing my first adult home in a fire. So when I was forced to leave it before I was ready, I felt completely and totally lost and didn’t quite know how to deal with what I was feeling. 

There was also the intense fear in the back of my mind knowing that Molester, my haven, was no longer a safe place to live anyway. Only a month before we left, my car was broken into. Four nights before the flood, someone broke into the first floor of the house, came upstairs, and attempted to break the dead-bolt on our living room door, meaning that they knew someone was inside, and were prepared to face us to get what they wanted. As overdramatic as I can admit that this sounds now, if they had gotten in, I don’t know if I’d be here to write this blog. So this, combined with the flood and its aftermath was an awful lot for my mind to process. 

I know that I have not been around as much as I used to be. I know that some people may not understand, and may now consider me a “flake” or a “bad friend”…. but honestly, I am not sorry for not being around. I needed this time to heal. If I were a celebrity with limitless funds, I would have checked myself into some fancy rehab clinic for “exhaustion” and laid by the pool all day. And truthfully, in some ways, I’m still healing, and I might still need some time. All I can hope for is that my real friends will be patient with me, as so many of you truly have, and respect the fact that as much as I wish I could have dealt with losing my home last summer in a more productive and “social” way, I needed to crawl into an anti-social ball of Netflix, wine, and my bed to sort through my emotions. The mere thought of meeting up for dinner, coffee, or drinks when it wasn’t someone’s birthday, show, or holiday (i.e., mandatory) was excruciating for me to even fathom. It had nothing to do with not wanting to see anyone. If anything, I missed everyone more. Truth is, I love and value each and every person I call a friend as much, if not more, after this ordeal and I can only hope that everyone understands that. I just needed some time away to get over it all. 

Moving on, I’ll be ok. I don’t even really want or need to talk about it much anymore, and I shouldn’t. It IS time to get over it. Its over. I obviously recognize that so many people, both people I know and do not know, have gone through way worse, and that I’m just wasting more time by being depressed or cutting myself off from everyone and everything. Now I have a great new home that I love, a new car, and some very exciting things coming up on the horizon this year. And when I think about it, fall and winter came and went in the blink of an eye. The months that seemed so long and painful when I was “homeless” are barely even a memory anymore. I’m ready to come back and begin again. 

I noticed this bush outside of my new house a few weeks ago, and immediately identified with how it looked. All of the dead leaves and flowers from last year were still there, causing it to appear dead and weighed down, but there were these little green buds poking through last year’s decay, giving the plant hope that it would soon blossom again. If I could put my emotions from last year through now into an image, this would be exactly it. And each day, I notice more and more green poking through.