Finding Routines In Chaos

I've been meaning to get back on here, but I've been so busy. That's part of it, but a big part of it has just been the depression. I walk into the office, look at the computer, and can't even muster the energy to turn it on. Yes I've been busy, but I've also spent way way too much of my down time vegging in front of the TV, eating junk food, drinking soda. Stuff that's okay if I was a college freshman with no classes for two days. But I'm an adult, with chores and responsibilities. I'm an adult with the freedom to go do anything I want. I'm an adult with health issues, both mental and physical. I just can't seem to find a reason to care enough about myself to live a better life. Most days, even though I may not be feeling the sadness that most people use to define depression, I do struggle with the other factors. Loss of interest, indecisiveness, confusion, trouble concentrating, no desire to do anything at all. For me the depression also feeds my feelings of immaturity and irresponsibility. I'm like a petulant child- I don't wanna do it!- and the depression is sweetly agreeing, of course you don't have to take a shower today.

Mostly I just don't give a shit about anything. I'm not sure if that's due to the depression, or just clinical detachment.

Mind you, this behavior and thought pattern is just when I'm alone. With J I'm a bundle of fun and happiness and want to go-go-go anywhere and everywhere. I'm suddenly full of nonstop energy and grand ideas. Let's go take a drive, let's get dressed up and go out to eat, let's go to the garden center and look at patio furniture, let's go shopping at the antique store. Suddenly when I'm with J I just want to experience everything! But, I'm not usually with J, because like most husbands he works for a living outside the home and he's gone. I just wish I knew how to bottle that weekend energy I give to J, and save some of it for myself on the weekdays when I'm home alone, or venturing into town by myself. This week was particularly bad- even though J left on Monday, it took me until Thursday before I could rouse myself out of my funk and away from the house to just go drop off his dry cleaning. Honestly, I did not want to move here just so I could continue on my same self-destructive path of becoming a hermit. There is TOO much to do in this area, I should be sailing out the door every morning to take on something new! Even if it's going to a farmers market to buy tomatoes.

Since my last post we took a long Alaska cruise. We had a gigantic estate sale back at the old house (five grand in our pockets and all our old shit gone). We've had family come stay with us for awhile. And we've been digging away at all the boxes in the house and garage. Trying to find our old life and institute it at the new house. I guess I should stop calling it the "new" house now, and just say HOME.

J got up Monday morning in the dark and headed for the airport. This week he doesn't get to come home over the weekend due to a work project on Saturday. So he'll be gone for eleven days. The night he gets back, he will have time to change clothes and pee, then we get in the car and head to the beach for the next five days. Not for anything enjoyable, it's an obligatory visit with family, which I never consider fun. Today it's storming all day, dangerously so. I'm staying in to attempt to catch up on chores. My plans are for me to keep unpacking boxes. And to do some pottery. Yes, pottery, because it's been too long.

I know I still have a long way to go to get the house put back in order, and I'm trying not to stress out over all the clutter that surrounds me every day. But for the most part, the main living areas are done. The kitchen, the bathrooms, the living room and sunroom and bedroom. The things still packed up are odds and ends, a lot of craft stuff, and just junk. So I told myself that this week, since I have an "extended" schedule of being home alone, I'm going to take a break and work on pottery. It's been w-a-y too long, and I deserve to spend a few days getting muddy and being creative. And it took quite an effort to convince myself that I did deserve a break. Even so, as always I feel that ticking clock hanging over me. I know that my job, first and foremost, is to be a housewife. During the week when J is gone, I can be whoever I want to be. But eventually that cycle kicks back around, my husband is home, and I have to shift into wife and happy homemaker mode. And I'm cool with that, because I love J so much and I'm proud to be his partner. But dammit, I'm always faking it for him.

Having the estate sale behind us has been a huge relief. It's just one more tie to the past that I can cut. One step closer to being able to completely cross that house and town off my list of things to think about. Now that the old house is empty, the contractor will get his work done in two or three weeks, and our house can go on the market. Luckily for us, the market is still hot in our area, houses in our little neighborhood are getting snapped up as soon as they go up for sale. We're hoping that a month from now, it's still going that strong. Since last summer, maybe two dozen houses have sold, but so far we'll be the first one with a basement. Our realtor said people should line up for that, because it's such a desired feature. We're crossing our fingers.

Mostly I'm concentrating on shifting my mindset these days. In the past, with the depression and anxiety, I've succeeded in always playing the helpless victim, and I've let it "happen" to me. I'm sick of it. I want control over it. I want to fight it. I want to manage it better. When it hits I always feel like I'm drowning, but I'm ready to learn to ride a surfboard on top of those waves of anxiety, I'm ready to learn how to swim against the currents of the depression instead of allowing it to sweep me farther out to sea. I make this sound poetic, but it sucks, it's hard work, it's exhausting, it's demanding, and sometimes I end up completed defeated.

But I feel as though I'm doing a little better. The depression still comes. The anxiety still pops up. However, it doesn't seem as though it lasts as long each time. Which is a relief. I would like to think my new surroundings help. Ever since we bought this house and these few wooded acres of privacy last year, I dreamed that once we moved here permanently my life would evolve into something shiny and new, like a snake shedding off and leaving behind its old skin, moving on towards the next day. It's only been two months, so I'm not giving up hope that this can and will happen. Maintaining this house will be its own form of hard work. Right now I'm doing my best. I will continue to strive to make that best get better.

I'm giving myself until the end of this year to truly make strides in redefining my life. By then everything will be unpacked, everything put away in its proper place. My craft room will be up and running again. The old house will be sold and will become just a memory. In other words, the world should be back to "normal" again for us as far as daily and weekly routines. We never plan on moving again. Things may change, J's job my change if he so chooses, family ties will change. It's time for me to stop using the fact that I was living in a house and town that I hated, as my excuse for just giving up on myself.

I'm still doing a halfway okay job of faking it on the outside. J still knows better, even though I try to be all smiles and coy winks when I'm with him. He also feels like this- the move, the new house, the new town- is my last chance at happiness. A few months ago he said to me that I've just got to try harder to get better. That's difficult for someone with crushing depression to listen to, but that was my old mentality of having the depression just "happen" to me without asking my permission first. J also went on to tell me, if there's something about my life that I don't like, then I have to change it. Again, hard to hear, but very much the truth.

I've got the home I've always dreamt about finally. I now live in an awesome college town swarming with culture and coolness. It's everything anyone could ever want. So I'm bound and determined to not fuck it up this time around. Life and love and laughter are out there happening every minute. It's time for me to jump into the mix and enjoy this ride.

MISS GEE

Quick Hello

A super quick post to report on Week One of living at the new house. Other than J having to now get up at the unholy time of 3:15am on Mondays to catch his flights for work, things have been good.

I didn't expect all of my negative behavioral issues to change overnight, so I'm not going to get upset that some of my worst habits continued last week. The laziness, the brain fog, the days where I forgot to shower and just vegged out in front of the TV. I know it's going to take awhile for things to settle down, for me to create my new routines. To unpack. To find direction. To just "deal with it" every day.

Unpacking has been the hardest thing to deal with, but I'm not going to stress out about it. Eventually I will "find" everything. Eventually I will figure out where I want things to go. Having a much smaller house, and now having no basement, will produce challenges. But I'm not going to worry at this point.

The cats have settled in nicely. That was one of my main concerns. This house has windows galore, so they've been happy watching the birds and squirrels. I met with the new pet sitters last week. I have reservations about them, but I'll give them a fair chance. They were recommended by family members, so I have to put my trust in that. We leave this Friday for vacation and won't be returning until the next next Tuesday. It's a long trip, and a long time to leave my babies in a relatively new environment, and I will worry about the new people in my home taking care of them. But I will try to put that out of my mind and relax and enjoy the vacation.

J needs this vacation badly. He is extremely stressed out about work, so this two week break will hopefully let him recuperate from a tough assignment. Even though we get back on Tuesday of the second week, since he travels for work, his boss is allowing him to "work from home" for the rest of that week. That's extra good news for me because he can help do some things around here that I'm not physically able to do. Our "first" weekend at the new house, was actually spent back down at the old house where we finished up some cleaning and packing. And bought a new car. Yes, really, from a friend. We towed it to the new house in an unrelenting storm that caused flooding on our new country road. We almost didn't get back here. But as always, when J is in charge, everything worked out fine. He has the golden touch, I swear.

I'm looking forward to the vacation, but I'm looking forward to getting back here so I can get things done, unpack, organize, find my new life. I know it's going to work out, I feel it already. My mood has been so much lighter. I can't say my anxiety is gone, because any small glitch in my day can cause me to spiral out of control. But so far it's been manageable. I just tell myself that everything is new, and everything is going to be different and unfamiliar right now until I get used to it. Then this new phase of my life can truly begin.

MISS GEE

One Last Week

Well this is the last week living at the current house. The newspaper has been cancelled. The cable and garbage pickup get cancelled this Friday. The mail starts getting forwarded to our new address in a few days. The new lawn service will start next weekend. The freezer is empty and the refrigerator is almost bare. I've been drinking coffee out of paper cups because everything is packed up. It's about as real and final as it gets.

But regular life goes on too. Monday morning started off the same, with J up at 4:30am to catch his flight. Normal chores are still on my list of things to do. Laundry, going to the pharmacy and post office, taking the recycling, meeting friends for goodbye dinners, checkups at the vet. Toilets need to be scrubbed and carpets need to be vacuumed. And somewhere in there I have to pack up the very last of our belongings that are still here-clothes, pots and pans, canned food in the pantry, bathroom stuff. AND we go on a big 12 day vacation the first week of May that I have done absolutely zero prep work for. Since I may not have a computer for a little while once we move, I have to take care of all that this week too.

On this coming Saturday morning J will pull out of this driveway with a small moving trailer behind him. I will be right behind him with my SUV loaded down with junk, houseplants, and the three cats. Then we make that 250 mile drive north once again. Not too many of those left, thank goodness. It doesn't sound like much, but when you always have to make that drive at 3am to avoid the horrendous, ridiculous, standstill traffic going through "the city", then that drive gets very tiresome very quickly. If I never see that particular stretch of interstate ever again, I will count my blessings.

We are coming back down here the following weekend, to do more cleaning and yard work, and to pick up a few last things. And that should be it for awhile. I've already handed over the key to the house and the code for the alarm to the estate sale company. After next weekend the house, and all that remains inside and out, is all theirs. And we've left a shitload of stuff. If you walked into my house right now, you'd never know we even moved anything at all, because we are leaving behind all the furniture.

We're disappointed that the estate sale company can't do our sale until June. But in a way that's nice too because we can move, go on our vacation, and not have to think about anything for a few weeks. We don't have to come back down here for awhile. In fact, they don't even want us at the sale itself- it's their policy to have the client not be there. Which is fine by me, I don't really want to watch the living room set we paid $5000 for walk out the door for $500. J said he still wants to come to town that weekend, and late on the last day of the sale he is going to stroll in and pretend to be a customer, so he can check out what's left. They didn't meet with J, so they have no idea what he looks like. He just wants to get a good idea of what all we will have to deal with once the sale is over. No estate sale sells out completely, and whatever remains will just get donated. If we left it behind in the first place, we don't need it in our new life.

We also finally met with our real estate agents this weekend. It was surprising for me. Not because of the meeting itself. But it made me realize how negative I always am, how much I beat myself up. I guess from the way I've been talking to my agent, she thought the house would be an utter disaster. But she walked in with her partner and they were both like, there is nothing wrong with this house! Fresh paint on the walls and that should be it. I was prepared to replace hardwood floors and kitchen appliances, everything from floor to ceiling, they said no need. She explained to me, this is NOT new construction, there is no reason to redo the entire house and try to compete with brand new homes. I mean, I wanted to replace the fridge because it has scratches on it. She said that is not even anything to worry about. They said our basement gives us a $25,000 added value over most of the non-basement homes in the area. I like the sound of that! They did say that we should have the carpets professionally cleaned once the house is empty, then they can see if we need to replace it or not. I know there are stains from the cats, and we've always overlooked them. I'm not sure the average home buyer coming in will be able to do the same.

So it's probably going to be July before we get the house on the market. And I'm okay with that. Again, it gives us time to relax and enjoy life at the new house. We won't have to rush back down here and do a bunch of stuff right away. And these days, agents handle most of that anyhow. I know we will have to make a few trips back here for things, but not for awhile. It's good timing. A few years ago when the economy tanked, the value of our house dropped to about $80,000 less than what we paid for it. Now it's worth about $60,000 more than what we paid for it. So we really want to sell as soon as we can, so we can get our new mortgage paid down down down. Although the new house is much smaller, it was about $100,000 more than this house, because of the almost 8 acres of land. The current house has been paid off for a few years now, so it's our goal as we go into our 50's eyeballing retirement, to get the new house paid off as soon as we can. Selling this house for full market value would get us there quickly.

Since we bought the new house a year ago, we've spent every weekend either packing or moving a load up there. Even on "free" weekends we were busting our butts at home doing work. I feel as though I haven't had a moment to catch my breath in a long long time. I know if I worked outside of the home, I couldn't do this. I know if J didn't have the travel job, we couldn't move at all. But it has all been extremely tiring, and I'm so ready for it to be over. It has been very very difficult these last few months, having most of my "life" sitting in boxes in a garage 4 1/2 hours away. Everything- my crafts, my books- even most of my clothes. Even our bed is up there already, and we've been trying to sleep on the tiny lumpy guest bed here. Most weekends J ends up sleeping on the couch because of it. I'm tired of that too. I've been living here for many weeks now with just two pairs of jeans, one pair of shoes, one set of earrings, and a few shirts that I wear over and over again- the jeans now have holes in them! That has fed into my depression quite a bit. You would like to think you aren't a materialistic diva, but when you have to live without all your things for a few months, you realize you ARE materialistic. And that's okay.

I know when we first bought the new house, we thought of it as just a "second" home that we would move to "one day". But every time we went up there, we loved it more and more, and it became almost impossible for us to think about anything else. We knew we couldn't wait several years to move there permanently. I won't say this has been the worst year of my life, but it's certainly been the longest and most exhausting. It's been stressful, but as always, it's stress and anxiety that I bring on myself. As far as any outside influences go, everything has been smooth sailing because J always makes it that way. I guess it's because his job requires him to take charge and make decisions and be strong, and that always carries over into whatever we're doing at home. When I start to go off the rails with my anxiety, he gently leads me back to the path without fail. He is definitely a steady yang to my crazy-ass yin.

Well I'll be back soon. I don't know when I will have the internet up and running once we move. Hopefully it will be quick and painless. We are out in the country, we don't even have cable TV out there, so I'm not sure what we're going to end up with. But whatever it is, it's worth it just to be there instead of here.

Our new front porch- by next week I'll be having my morning coffee here!

Getting It Together

Well I'm back, and I'm going to give the blog another try. I've been wanting to start a new blog (and I still might), but I realized that I've just left this one hanging for so long now. And my depression and anxiety are no closer to being gone. I started the blog to journal my ups and downs, and they still continue. Things have happened in my life lately that I don't really want to talk about now, but I know I need to vent eventually. Right now we have a big event looming, and that's all I can focus on. My time, my energy, my body, my emotions.

We are two weeks away from finally moving to our new house. Yes, the house I blogged about a year ago. It's taken all this time. Most normal people move over a weekend. But of course we don't do things the normal way. We've been spending weekends moving everything one pickup truck load at a time, making the 500 mile round trip- sometimes in one day. It's been exhausting and painful. Physically painful for me, doing all of this packing. And emotionally painful because we go to our beautiful, peaceful new home for just a few hours, then come back to the crappy shithole town and neighborhood we've lived in for almost nine years. I'm ready to be gone, for good.

My body is a wreck. I have days I can barely get out of bed, I ache so much. All the scrubbing and vacuuming and carrying boxes is more than I can handle in my current state. The cleaning supplies give me awful headaches and agitate my asthma. My hands are cracked and bleeding. Seriously. Moving is for younger, healthier people. The last time we moved, here in 2008, J's company took care of everything. Before that, it was just moving to houses on the other side of town. This is a first for us, moving ourselves so far away. And what you can do at 30, is a lot harder at 50. And I know I still have to unpack once we do finally move.

I took the photo above, in the fall, and it's my favorite one from the new house. I'm standing about halfway up the driveway, looking down. You can't even see the street out there. It's amazing. I have been hanging on for a year. These last two weeks are draining me. J still travels full time for his job, although he's become severely unhappy about it. He's been at his current assignment since the first week of this year, and he hates it. I think once we move, he will start looking to find a local job. We know he won't make nearly the money he makes now, but he'll be at home and he'll have a lot less stress. Sometimes money can't compete with the things that give you peace in your heart.

For now, even though we physically move to the new house on Easter weekend, we have a lot of work that we will leave behind. We will have a big estate sale- the people from the company come tomorrow to look at all our remaining stuff. Once that is over, then J and I will have to come back down here and get either Goodwill or Salvation Army to take the unsold items. Then we will have to get a contractor in here to fix up the house. Two realtors will be coming in this weekend to give us appraisals. Both are friends. I'm even feeling anxiety over choosing one friend over the other. Seriously. J said to let it go, they are professionals, they probably get turned down for listings on a regular basis.

It's nothing major, but anyone who has pets and carpet, know that the two don't mix very well. The house needs all new carpet, hardwood floors, paint. We also plan to replace our worn out appliances, and freshen up the landscaping. Then it goes on the market. I don't think it will take long. Houses in my neighborhood are selling within days of going on the market. We had six houses sell in about two weeks. Of course, we won't be ready for probably two months, but hopefully the desire for houses in our area will still continue.

All of this has caused tremendous anxiety for me. J keeps telling me it will all be okay, it will all work out. And I know it will. We're not doing anything different that thousands of other people are already doing every day across the country. But for me, with my anxiety out of my control, I can't help but to worry and pick apart our plans and find fault in every decision I'm making. It's been a long year. But now that we're at the end of it, it's oddly been even harder for me. No sense of relief, just increased angst. Because everything is more urgent now. And people- strangers, neighbors- will be coming into my house. Judging me for how dusty my furniture is. For the pet stains on my carpet. For the scratches on my floor. For the cobwebs I missed in the corner. For the musty pet smell in the air. For the weeds in the flower beds. All of it. J tells me, SO WHAT?! Who cares. We don't know these people, we'll never see them again, once it's over it's over and we move on with our new life. They are meaningless, their opinions are worthless.

He is so right, but it's hard for my brain to grab and hold onto that idea. And because of that, my anxiety right now is a 15 on a 1-10 scale. I try to just look forward to the joy and happiness that awaits us in our very near future, but I instead dwell on all the work I still have to do here. I dwell on the mistakes and bad choices of the past. I am paralyzed with it, and the depression has become overwhelming again. I drive by the house two doors down that sold in 11 days, I see their moving boxes stacked neatly in their garage, and I watched the two full moving trucks pull away on Sunday. I tell myself, see they just did it, easy peasy! Why the hell am I worrying myself to death!

Gotta go pack a few more boxes. I will plan to be back next week.

Still- MISS GEE

(The living room at my new house- can't wait to be there now!)