In My Defense

I can't decide what to write about tonight. It was my birthday last Thursday. Facebook has a way of making one feel very special on their birthday. I enjoy all of the notes that people send me. It also has this unique ability to raise my anxiety.

You see, I was raised by a devotee of Emily Post. I was taught to write thank-you notes, a tradition I follow to this day. I handwrite all of my thank-you notes. If I don't write a thank-you note, the anxiety starts to creep in. I begin to feel fairly certain that the person who gifted me something is waiting, foot tapping, at their mailbox. I get a creeping feeling that I am going to be unfriended because of my lack of gratitude.

I start the day off trying to type a funny comment or react to each post. As the day wears on, though, and the chaos of my life gets unleashed, I lose track of which post I've read. I turned off notifications for Facebook on my phone a year ago, so my phone isn't pinging all day. At the same time, I tend to check more frequently on my birthday.

I 100% meant to go on Facebook on my birthday, at the end of the day, and say a collective thank you. But Brian was working and it was nuts at bedtime. Then I thought, "that's okay, just go ahead and post something on Friday." But I had the chance to go to a friend's house and do nothing, which I did with great panache.

By Saturday, a vague feeling of guilt started to wash over me. I hadn't posted anything. Now, I will admit that seemingly no one unfriended me. I didn't feel any dirty glances being thrown my way as I ventured out and about. I didn't discover a flaming bag of dog poo on my front porch.

None of that mattered, though. The guilt continued to hover over me.

I honestly haven't felt much like posting anything the past few days. My depression has persisted in earnest. I thought maybe I had some unresolved issue with aging. Maybe after my birthday, I surmised, my depression would abate. To no avail.

I have had a couple of close friends suggest that I need to have my medication adjusted. That seems to be a strong possibility. I am struggling with that idea. Side effects can be bothersome and range from small things like dry mouth to larger issues like insomnia. Body chemistry can change over time and it's possible I need to change my medications all together (the thought of which is causing my anxiety to rise).

In any case, this is the kind of useless dialogue that I spend my days obsessing about. It is, in a word, exhausting.

Also exhausting? Putting an angry 2-year-old to bed when she is overtired. And assembling meals for my four kids. I've long since given up on trying to make a meal that appeals to everyone. There are only two foods that appeal to everyone--skirt steak from Costco and pizza. Both are very rare treats around our house. Aside from that, I have to place every meal on a segmented plate. Everyone has their own plate. Every segment on the plate has a specific food that belongs in it. Jeremy gets green pepper, baby carrots and cucumber. Doug does not. Doug only eats grapes, purple grapes without seeds in them. Brooklyn requires purple grapes and pretzels. She also has to have a fork, even if she doesn't intend to use it.

I cried today. Kind of an ugly cry. It's tough, day after day, to try and understand why I feel so sad when there don't seem to be reasons for me to be sad. I feel like I should be getting close to cried out, that the heaviness tugging at my soul would already have ripped and fallen off. I feel like I am failing my family in some undefinable way. I am irritable and unable to complete simple tasks.

Which is why, now that it's Monday and I've wasted the whole weekend obsessed about it, I'm saying thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday. It was a good birthday and I really appreciated everyone who took the time to wish me well.