today my parents are celebrating what we will say is my mom's 30th birthday in Nashville seeing a collection of country stars that would make even the faux, teeny-bopper taylor swift fans giddy. google maps puts them at just under 900 miles from my humble abode here in Queens.
being 891 miles away from her two whiney daughters is probably a gift in itself. my sister insists on dealing with her break up woes through yoga and golden girls, both of which i generally oppose but often give into. my little-bit-of-dissatisfaction-with-everything is mostly dealt with through obscure musical artists and a good cleaning binge.
i am three-and-a-half-years younger than my sister, labeling us both '20 somethings.' this is the first time we have lived together since our biggest problems were 'lay off of my hair gel' and 'yes you WILL drive me there, you licensed brat.' those weren't actually our biggest problems, but for the charming sake of adolescence, we will pretend it was.
i guess those were the biggest problems related to our age that we had control over. the ones you don't have control over i think are more likely to put you in 'depression.' the ones that you do have control over are more likely to put you 'in a rut.' it's an important distinction because when something is out of your control you have to work through it. when it is in your control, you have the ability to get out of it simply by making your own healthy decisions, or even by stopping to continually make the unhealthy ones. they tend to be a lot of short term fun. and also, they are the afore mentioned method of treating symptoms, rather than the rooted problem. i assume this because i've never heard anyone say 'i think this 10 piece chicken mcnugget was the healthy meal i said i would cook all week.' i've never heard someone say 'this heineken and one night stand have really changed my outlook on relationships.' and i've never heard anyone say 'i feel confident that sending facebook bumper stickers for four hours is the next step toward my dream job.'
but maybe just for an hour, or a day, or a week, you don't have to be the 'you' that has responsibilities. you don't have to be the 'you' that demands you solve your problems, or even thinks about them. best of all, you don't have to be accountable, or think of clever little ways to dodge the blame. but why don't you want to be you? and would you want to be if you just solved the problems at hand?
usually you can break out of this rut by eating a salad and going to the gym, not binge drinking like an overgrown member of greek life, and getting off the HELL off of facebook. and voila! you are a balanced, healthy person again.
when depression hits, it's usually because of circumstances beyond our control. someone or something else forced a circumstance that breaks you. personally, i didn't break until everything and everyone else around me was okay. knowing that everyone around me was secure allowed me the freedom to fall apart, which is both freeing and simultaneously handcuffs you. i knew my foundation was solid and my shoulders were strong. in an odd way, it's liberating, of course you fail to recognize it when you are going through the hell that is recovery. nobody said catharsis was fun.
it's weird how abnormal the new 'normal' can feel, and quite frankly it kind of blows. which is why all you can do is feel and heal. i should make t-shirts. but sincerely, the best you can do is hold it together, work work work on yourself, and wait for 'okay' to come to you, rather than staking outside looking for it in others as much as the sky. your venture will be fruitless until you are your own priority, which is harder than it sounds, and harder than it should be.
sorry to all cliche enthusiasts, self-included, but i don't think that time heals wounds. i assert that time heals scars, not all wounds. that is up to us.
depression is still all on us. it's still all on you to do the work, but you have to strive to accept a problem rather than solve it (like the rut).
but really what the fuck is the difference.
i would like to think i sound clearheaded when i draw these lines, and that i learned this from the pain. it's a coping mechanism i apply to my life. it's a neat and tidy package that never fails and has never been shit on. also hell is currently an ice rink and if you look outside your window there are pigs flying everywhere.
when you are depressed or in a rut. you can draw all the lines you want, but as a much more talented writer than i once wrote, you usually end up drawing a question mark. none of these distinctions are clear when you are immersed in the pain, or even when it just occasionally stabs at you with old photographs of loves lost through death, emotional traumas that kill lives but still leave people breathing, or heartbreak. or hey how about all three. depression vs. rut is vague, and ultimately doesn't matter when you feel like you are drowning, or at least wading in the sea of emotional waves. the context between the two are different. but the same pain punctuates us, be it obsessively or rarely, and is familiar in both. further more, you can't distinguish between a rut and depression until you have been through them both, which means you have probably coped your way out of both and i am preaching to the choir. can i get an AMEN?
confession. true life: i'm in a rut. i know i'm in a rut. moving was such a clean new beginning. but right now, i'm SO totally rutted. but this is not what scares me, because i am aware of it, and i'm aware of how to bust out. the only part that scares me is that right now i have lost the energy to do the steps i know i have to take to get there. sometimes it's because i am so flooded with emotion. sometimes it's because i am so busy. sometimes it's because i'm tired of the self-improvement game. sometimes i'm tired because the ALCS is going to take place in part on the West Coast (as will the NLCS). but being aware of the work ahead and not doing it is like losing a promotion to The Guy That Comes In Early. and puts covers on his TPS reports. you know you could to better, but you are choosing to accept the B (or sometimes B-) version of yourself. you sell yourself short, making you even more frustrated with yourself, which in and of itself pushes you further from your happiness. but as chuck klosterman says, luckily 'nothing is in and of itself.'
i'll get out of the rut before it rusts. until then, my mom will just have to be thankful that her sadsack daughter is in the company of her other sadsack daughter. and that she and my father are in cowboy hats, and the deafening speakers drown out our self pity.
happy birthday mom. i'm growing up.
-k.
Sounds like somebody has a case of the "Mondays".
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