Blue Condition

General inertia is now a cloud of blue, and I feel surrounded, engulfed, obliterated. This is life with chronic depression. Some days just go that way. Maybe it's just simply a matter of having a lot on my mind.

My granddaughter could begin arriving in the world at any moment, though the official due date is not until next Sunday. As I wait, I feel terribly unsettled, afraid to venture too far from home, tethered to the cell phone, knowing at any given moment, I will need to drop everything and run.

I am the labor coach, and perhaps it's mean of me to say, but I am not taking on that role for my daughter's sake. I am taking it on, because that's the only time I'll get to spend with my granddaughter for quite some time. She is being adopted by a wonderful family, and there will be future contact with the child and her new family, but...

She is being adopted. She is not coming home with us.

This is probably for the best. My daughter is not ready to be a parent, and I am not in a position to quit my job and raise an infant at this point in my life. I am nearing 50, and my husband has cancer. Though it has been caught early and surgery should eliminate it completely, there are no guarantees. The doctors say it looks good, but anything can happen. In a worst case scenario, I could not raise a young child as a single mom.

This feels like a huge weakness on my part. An admission of defeat. A testimony to my own selfishness. It makes me feel like I totally and utterly suck.

People say I am talented, I am smart, look at all the things I've done over the years, how driven I am, how accomplished, and all I can do on a day like this is look at them blankly. Who, me? Really. I simply can't see it. The things I'm good at -- where have they gotten me? I can't get a publisher or agent to give me the time of day. My yarn business failed. Music? Well, I enjoy playing for my own pleasure, and I record stuff to amuse myself and share with friends, but it won't go anywhere beyond that. I'm too shy about performing these days, and while refusing to perform might have worked for Harry Nilsson, well, I'm no Harry Nilsson. I just do what I do, and sometimes it satisfies me, and sometimes it doesn't.

Reality check. I work in a factory doing assembly. I like the work well enough, but wish I had the confidence to turn something creative I do into a modest profit, so I could quit my day job.

I had better stop now, before I go off on the loneliness/isolation tangent. :-(