Unspoken Word Two

"Powerful Stuff"

God damn it is hard here.  And I am trying not to complain. And I know that it is just September and that I am just having an allergic reaction to dusty grapevines and the lack of rain.  And I am trying to count my blessings.  But depression isn't reasonable and the entire world feels like a tangled mess of covers that I can't stay in or get out of.

I will punch you if you tell me all of the things I have to be grateful for.  I know that.  I know that better than you.  This is not about knowledge or intellectual ability.  Or facts.  God knows this is not about facts.

It is just so relentless.  This battle.  Every day.  Every fucking day.  And I wish I could be distracted by like a hobby or a club.  But I can't even wash my hair with any regularity so that level of commitment escapes me.

Just keep swimming.  Get up off of the operating room floor, Christina.  Look for a moment.  Look harder.  Lower your moment expectations.  Text Julie and Diana.  Call your Mom.  Wait for Heather to get home and have five minutes over coffee tomorrow.  Keith is still alive.  That is more than enough.  That is everything.

Maybe you don't have to wage a war against caffeine in this life time?  Maybe just five minutes on the treadmill?  Maybe you aren't supposed to have kids because you aren't ready.  And you aren't ever going to be ready.  And that's o.k.  Because you are not a failure, Megan.  Maybe your beauty lies in not being a pretty girl.  I don't know.  I don't know anything.

Schedule joy.  I will punch you harder if you tell me to schedule fucking joy.  The ability to feel joy is exactly the thing I have no ability to control.  Let alone schedule.  And I am quite sure if I put "feel joy" in my iPhone, the first time it alerts me to it, the only thing that will happen is an iPhone sized hole in my wall.  No one wins in that situation.  Especially the wall.

It has to rain soon.  It just has too.  There will come soft rains, red rain falling down, my prayers for rain.  Did things work out for the Joads ever?  Don't tell my high school English teachers....but I don't remember.  I think maybe eventually it rained.  Or they all died.  Whatever.

One. Foot. Then. The. Other.  Don't Jump.  Don't jump ever.  Keep walking by the open window.  Pet Jenner.  Pet Rain.  Eat an apple.  Consider the magnitude of how this very simple apple got to your fruit bowl.  In your kitchen.  In your house.  In Jackson, CA.  Powerful stuff apples. Seeds.  Life.

Powerful, powerful, stuff.