The Hole

Have you ever looked at someone whom you thought you knew and realized you don't know them at all? Have you ever just wanted to be near someone, not to talk to them but just to be there sitting with them - if nothing else to be breathing the same air as them, and known that they were simply hoping you would leave the room? Have you ever felt so sad and so alone that you were amazed by the fact that you were even remembering to breathe at all, much less hoping to breathe the same air as someone else? Have you ever found yourself in a hole - a hole that was dark and seemingly unending? That is where I am. I am in that hole. Part of me wants to lie down in this hole, to close my eyes and just to be. Yet another part of me wants to scream and shout and claw my way out. I wonder if there is an in-between?

Earlier this evening, when all I wanted to do is sit in the same room as him (not even talking - just sitting) and it seemed as though all he wanted to do was will me to leave the room, I went in and lay down on the guest bed. The bed he has slept in for the past five nights. I lay in "his spot" and clung to his pillow, breathing in his scent. I sobbed and sobbed into his pillow until it was soaked with my tears. I sobbed until I fell asleep, clinging to that pillow as if it actually were my husband. It's funny how things like this can provide comfort. When I was a little girl I had a cousin whom I absolutely adored - I mean, to me she walked on water, she was the coolest thing ever! One of the last Christmases I ever saw her she gave me this stuffed dog, which I named after her. (I realize that sound a bit cryptic - not to worry, my cousin is alive and well, but that's another story and one that is not mine to tell.) Anyway, that stuffed dog has always given me comfort, although I am not sure why. It was on my bed until the day I graduated from high school, it went to college with me, and even now it has a spot in my home (yes an actual spot - not just packed away in a box.) The night that my world came crashing down I picked up that stuffed dog and clung to it - as if it would save me, and I have slept with it every night since.

I didn't change my hat today, but I did leave the house. I went to see my doctor (which was the "condition" we had when I talked to her office on Monday and she called in an RX for an anti-anxiety medication for me). Needless to say, today she also put me on an antidepressant in addition to what she had prescribed on Monday. There was a time in my life (probably even last week) that this would have embarrassed me - to know that I was on medication for anxiety and/or depression and I would have been mortified if others ever knew. Yet here I sit, writing these words for all the world to read. But, one thing I am taking control over is this, the fact that I am writing this for all of you to read... I AM TAKING MEDICATION FOR ANXIETY AS WELL AS ONE FOR DEPRESSION AND I WILL NOT BE ASHAMED!!!! (Wow, that felt sort of powerful!!!)