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    A Hard Day

    Filed Under being creative, from the heart, health, local, sadness, small happinesses 

    Today was kind of hard. My energy level was low, and I was pouty and moody. I agonized for more than an hour over whether to sabotage my weight loss goals by eating a Tillamook cheeseburger basket from Burgerville - or that gigantic, yummy pastry from Wild Oats natural foods store. And the day started off all wrong when I overslept and missed my best friend’s FIRST sermon at a nearby church.

    Michael tried to be supportive, but everything he did just got on my nerves. I couldn’t articulate myself at all. I felt chronically fat, and shed a few tears over that. I berated myself for being so useless, lazy, and unaccomplished.

    Another bout of “the blues” just popping up out of nowhere. Yesterday I felt fine, though I’d been fretting about the weight thing all week - ever since I got home from New Orleans and jumped on the scale.

    At 3:30 this afternoon, I crawled into bed. My former classmate, Ann, had invited me to help out on a studio production she was doing today, and I had to decide whether to go. My insecure, unhappy self wanted to avoid any additional human interaction. There seemed to be no point in caring about myself. I lay there, blinking and feeling like I might as well be dead.

    There was another part of me - that had decided several months ago to stop taking anti depressant medication. This part knew that I loved being in the studio and ought to go.

    Meh. I just lay there and shut my eyes. The second part of me insisted, “Call Ann!” I picked up the phone and called Ann and quickly - before my mind changed - told her I’d see her at 5. Almost instantly, I regretted it, but it was too late. Michael came upstairs to cheer me up and I either ignored him or blew him off, I don’t even remember. At one point, I jumped out of bed and angrily grabbed a tape measure, ready to prove my fatness. “Look at this! My boobs are half an inch bigger?! Why?! Why is this happening to me?!” Although I was full of exasperation and anger, his response was typical, “The power of prayer?”

    I waited until 4:40pm to leave the house - this would give me no time to stop at Burgerville or Wild Oats on the way to the studio. In the car on the way there I plugged in my iPod and sang Come to My Window along with Melissa Etheridge. By the time I hit the freeway, I’d forgotten about the burger, Michael, missing Jan’s sermon, and my bust size. Instead, I scribbled down ideas for future posts (aesthetics among different sub groups, god as expectation), and convinced myself to take creative endeavors less seriously.

    The studio shoot was fun, as usual. I loved working the camera for Ann. The topic was mental health treatment in Multnomah County. I was very interested, but it didn’t even dawn on me until 90 minutes in that I’d been in the system once, too. The director liked our work so much, he asked me and one of my other former classmates to crew on another shoot.

    During the drive home at 8 o’clock, I felt grateful: now I didn’t have to beat myself up all night for blowing my calorie count and punking out on Ann. Hooray for not taking direction from my pathological critic. Hooray for Michael hanging in there with me. Hooray for jumping into creative work. I made it through another day.

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    3 Responses to “A Hard Day”

    1. Roger Kuhrt on July 16th, 2007 4:13 am

      Thanks, Hafidha–reading your post helped me a lot–I was about ready to exhaust myself (today) with 14hours of stuff I really didn’t want to do which included driving almost 5 hours as well. So whatever your blues musing triggered in me I just gave myself permission to sleep in, skip the event, read my Philip K. Dick novel and eventually get around to sipping a dry gin/tonic later in the evening.

      I feel much better now.

      Cheerfully, RK

    2. laura on July 16th, 2007 1:16 pm

      :::super big hugs:::

      I just want you to know I am fully aware of where you are coming from and I am thinking of you today. And I am so very glad you wrote about this to let us know you’re struggling - the hardest part of sadness is doing it alone.

      Would you mind if a crotchety old atheist lit a candle for you today?

    3. hafidha sofia on July 16th, 2007 6:21 pm

      Thanks, Laura. Today I feel better. Isn’t that something?! And you can light a candle for me anytime!

      Roger: Kudos for you - hope it was a good day!

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