Unsent Letters

My brother moved out of my parents’ house last month, which for some moms, would be a hard thing. Not my mom. She could not WAIT to clean out his room. I’m sure she’ll miss him eventually. Probably.

In the process of cleaning out what was left of his stuff, she moved it downstairs to my old room with what’s left of my stuff. She went through my desk, and found some columns I’d written when I was the features editor of my college newspaper, and half-filled notebooks of what looked to teachers like copious note taking, but was really me not paying attention at all. This could be the reason it took me seven years to finish college. Yes, seven. Although I guess I could also attribute it to the fact that my boyfriend my sophomore year of college was the social director of his fraternity and I had to set a good example by attending every event and drinking a lot, and also the fact that I like to sleep in and I changed my major three times. What? I’ve never been good at making decisions, especially ones that, in my head, might be construed as long-term. Anyway.

So my mom found a letter I had written to my old college roommate, Elaine. She had had a major breakdown the semester we moved away from each other – the middle of our sophomore year – she ended up in the hospital and everything, and I didn’t find out until a lot later. I wondered why she didn’t call me and I wondered why it happened. We both moved back home and still talked, but then she started falling away.

Elaine and I were great friends. We had gotten along wonderfully as roommates and not only that, we did everything together. Our freshman year, we had almost all of our classes together, ate three meals a day together and had the same friends. Our sophomore year, our boyfriends were best friends and were in the same fraternity. We still did everything together. And then we decided to move into apartments and we moved separately.

After we came back home, I continued on with school, but Elaine didn’t go back. She got a job as a server somewhere and if you’ve ever been in the service industry, you know it’s not the most conducive to, um, clean living. She got into partying and she got a new boyfriend, who turned out to be an abusive asshole. And like women in abusive relationships, she eventually stopped seeing her friends altogether. She got into a couple of bad situations and that, added to the fact that her boyfriend was a total prick, equaled out to her falling back into a depression.

It was weird, because she and I were so close, and she was also really close to Jeff, but she would never answer the phone when we called and never called us back. We knew she was having a hard time and we wanted to help, but she wouldn’t let us. Eventually, we gave up. It was hard for both of us, because we loved her.

I was pissed. And apparently, that’s what I wrote in the letter to her that my mom found.

I used to be exceedingly arrogant. I can still be that way, but I was much worse a few years ago. I knew it all and I would make sure you knew that I knew it all. Things were black and white and that was that. I was all about me and if you didn’t act the way I wanted you to, well, fuck you. And I’m sure that’s what this letter sounded like.

My mom didn’t read it to me and I don’t think I want to know what I wrote. Because I know it was angry and mean. My mom said that I was on a rampage about Elaine being depressed and how she should just pull herself out of it. That she was strong and she could do it and her friends wanted to help her. I’m sure that’s what I said. To be honest, I don't remember writing it. But I know I must have said those things, because in my arrogance, I thought that if she would just be strong, she could get herself out of the blackness she was in.

Thank god I never sent that letter. I would never want Elaine to read the mean things I know I must have said. Because I had no idea what depression could do to a person. And I know now.

Now I know that it’s not about being strong or not strong. It’s not something you can just “pull yourself out of.” It takes so much time and so much energy. Finding the right medication or combinations of medication alone can take months. Most depression medications aren’t ones you can take and then if it doesn’t work you take a different one. You have to wean yourself on and wean yourself off, because they’re strong. And it takes time. Sometimes people just give up, because the thought of weaning on and then off and doing the same thing with a new medication is so daunting.

People who have never been depressed don’t understand what it does. Most people wake up in the morning, get up, shower, have breakfast and go to work. Maybe they run errands at lunch, they go home, make dinner, maybe go to the gym. On the weekends they go out with their friends and do things around the house. It’s all very simple.

When you’re depressed, that just doesn’t happen. Getting up was a fight. Taking a shower and getting ready was overwhelming. Going to work made me want to throw up – for the entire 8 hours that I had to be there. I got caught in a cocoon while I was there and I didn’t leave all day long. When I got home, I just wanted to turn on the t.v., sit on the couch and not talk to anyone. I watched shows that I’d seen 8 million times just because it blocked out the noise in my head and I didn’t have to think about anything. I didn’t want to go out. I didn’t want to leave my house. I wanted to be there and be alone and that’s that.

Anyway. I feel like I should call Elaine and apologize for not being a better friend. For not being more understanding. But I won’t. Because I’m selfish and I don’t want to know if I hurt her, because now that I know how she felt, it would hurt me too much to know that I’d been a bad friend to her when she needed me.

Okey Dokey!

So I was recently an emotional nightmare. Maybe nightmare is too strong – maybe the better term is “emotional sorta bad dream”. I had two reactions to pretty much everything: anger and/or tears. Tears were inevitable – because when I used to have other emotions, they would all manifest themselves through tears. Happy, sad, scared, confused…hey look! Amber’s crying!

I joke a lot about how I hate my job and how it totally drains the life out of me. I guess I never realized just how affecting it was until January, when I had a complete breakdown. I went to work on January 3rd, after having a week off for Christmas, and I started crying and couldn’t stop. When I woke up the next day and thought about going to work, the tears started again. I called in sick. I could NOT face going to my job.

Over the course of the month, I took 100 hours of sick time, which means I actually worked the equivalent of two weeks. Never consecutively – I could never get through an entire week without having a day or two or five when the thought of getting out of bed was so overwhelming that I thought my head might explode. So I just didn’t get up.

The people around me knew I wasn’t myself. I would sit quietly, no jokes, no smiles, just sitting. I could put up a good front for a while, but man, the effort was hard. That, combined with the effort it took to get dressed and leave my house was something monumental. I didn’t want to see anyone or talk to anyone. More accurately, I didn’t want anyone to see me. There were few people I could stand to be around – not for any other reason than that it was just too hard. Everything I did was so hard.

My boss and Sally teamed up to make things better. I got the best doctors and things started going in the right direction. I got on medication, which promptly knocked me on my ass. I was so mellowed out that I didn’t even care about getting out of bed. Also I was sick all the time. Not the right chemical. So I tried something different and it worked much better.

I spent most of February and March not having emotions of any sort. Except for happy – happy was good and I felt SO MUCH BETTER. I rarely got angry, and if I did, it lasted for a nanosecond and then I would be like “meh.” The Anxiety Queen has been dethroned – I rarely get anxious anymore. And the crying? We don’t CRY here. Don’t be ridiculous. A good example of the effects is the other night when P.I.C. and I got back from finding my car at the tow yard. I was looking out the window and he said “This is a testament to your medication – you were so CALM. I think I was more upset than you were.” And it was true. I was like “well, what are you going to do?” At first the no emotion thing worried me a bit, but then I realized that maybe I was just having the sort of reactions that normal people have. Huh. Weird. I also know that the emotions will slowly come back -- when I'm ready for them.

I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. And I think that my having a crashtastic breakdown and subsequently dealing with shit happened so that when the time came for a HUGE life change (the whole “my company’s closing” thing) I could deal with it and not totally freak out.

I haven’t freaked out. When they told me the BIG NEWS, I was like “well it’s about time the board made the decision one way or the other.” I re-worked my resume and started looking for a new job. I’m actually really happy that this is happening.

Yesterday we found out that our office is closing April 30th, instead of in late July like we originally thought. The interim boss told us in a staff meeting, and we went over some of the details and questions and all that. At the end, he’s like “that’s all I have for now, but I’ll keep you updated.” And I said “Okey Dokey!” Everyone looked at me like I had lost my mind. Ha. That’s the funny thing – I felt like I had lost my mind a couple of months ago, but now? Not so much. Not at all, actually. Mind: found. No one panic, everything is under control.

So yeah. I still have stuff to work on – medication isn’t completely magical, but at least now I’m capable of dealing. Plus, if I didn’t have anything I wanted to change or improve, I’d be bored, and that’s never good. NEVER GOOD.

I’m excited to see where I go from here. I have fleeting feelings of fear and sadness and “what ifs”, but I don’t dwell on them. It’s great. I know that whatever the circumstances, I can take them in stride and adapt. I’m good like that. I have family and friends who love me and a bazillion other blessings that aren’t affected by whether or not I have a job or feel sad or am “myself”. This experience has shown me that over and over again, and for that, I’m thankful.

Okey dokey?

A tow-tal waste of money

Ha! Punny!

So the end of the "I can't believe that f*&%#^@*($!%@&*%@#!*%#$!! towed my car" saga, for all those who are curious, went like this.

P.I.C. and I went to the tow yard after work and picked up my car. For the low, low price of $140. Bastard. Not the tow company – it’s their job – but Dr. Prick. When I pulled up to P.I.C.’s building before we headed to the tow place, I “accidentally” blocked the entrance to the parking lot while we traded places. So sorry the people in the Lexus had to wait. SO SORRY. Not sorry at all.

We went back to his house, where I parked at a meter. Luckily, it didn't involve parallel parking. I suppose I'll be learning THAT in the near future. We went in and opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate…what, my first towing experience? The fact I’m poorer? Hmm. No, I’m pretty sure we just opened it because he bought my favorite and I wanted some. It was preventative -- so my profanity-laced tirades against Dr. Prick wouldn't just randomly start up like anger-induced tourette's. Then we watched the episodes of “Arrested Development” that we were so RUDELY prevented from watching the night before, cracked up, drank the whole bottle of champagne (What? Otherwise it would lose its bubbles!), and decided to go to dinner. We walked to dinner, but only after P.I.C. moved my car to another meter so that I wouldn’t get ticketed or, you know, TOWED.

So yes. Except for the whole “paying to un-impound my car”, it was a good evening. And as an aside, if anyone is looking for work as a tow truck driver, the good news is that you don’t need to know how to spell. At all. According to the tow receipt, I was “Parked in a privet lot/Unothorised.” Huh. Interesting. Apparently I was parked in a lot full of shrubs, when all this time I thought it was concrete. And the “unothorised”? Um, yeah. Enough said.

So there it is. Now you know "the rest of the story".

What I was GOING to say was...

I was going to write about what I did this weekend. How Friday night, P.I.C. and I went to the Nuggets game then wandered down to the Celtic Tavern to watch the remaining March Madness games. How Saturday morning we went to Starbucks to fuel up before heading down to watch the people desperate for their 15 minutes of fame wait in line to audition to be on the next “Apprentice”. I had it all figured out – how I was going to talk about the 6’7” guy in a cowboy hat and full-length fur coat who, as we walked by, was being interviewed for the news and how he said “I’m the biggest Apprentice yet” and how I feigned a HORRIBLE coughing fit to cover up the laughter and how we had to walk a good block before we were out of earshot and we looked at each other and lost it. Then I was going to tell you about how we doubled back around the block and watched the line of people go into the building and commented on who had the biggest air of desperation and who was willing to sleep with anyone just to get on the show. I wanted to go in, but P.I.C. said no, that would look like we were mocking them, and I said but we ARE and he said yes, but they don’t need to know that. So we went to breakfast instead.

I could then talk about how I was at Sally & Joe’s later, sunning myself on their patio and then drinking wine and having dinner and all of the funny anecdotes from that. I could talk about the book I finished this weekend, or I could talk about the nap I took yesterday with my bedroom window wide open because it was 70 degrees outside.

I would probably finish the weekend recap with some sort of “oh my god, how awesome is it that Tony Soprano is out of the coma and is going to be back to normal Tony next week?” And then I could maybe talk about how P.I.C grilled delicious salmon and we had a spinach salad and after we watched “The Sopranos” and “Big Love” we were going to watch some “Arrested Development” before I went home.

I would have said all that, only then? I looked out the window and I said “Where the fuck is my car?”

See, P.I.C. lives downtown, and the bottom floor of his building is leased to who I will now refer to as Dr. Prick. Dr. Prick has reserved parking spaces that I park in when I’m there in the evenings and on weekends because, really, how many patients will he be having at 7 p.m. on a Sunday? I am there ALL THE TIME and have yet to see a patient parked there. BECAUSE IT'S NIGHTTIME. Well, this evening, Dr. Prick had me towed. Yes, I realize that there is an Avalanche game tonight and that he might want to discourage people from parking there for free and walking across the street to the Pepsi Center for the game. However, clearly he was there this evening, and if he was paying any attention AT ALL, he would have seen that I was not going to the Avs game. I was carrying groceries and I keyed in the code to unlock the building doors – I didn’t walk out of the lot and across the street. ASS.

So P.I.C. called the tow company (closed, of course) and he called the police to make sure that the car was indeed towed and not stolen (not stolen) and we went to the tow yard and there was my little car being guarded diligently by rottweilers. I took P.I.C.’s car home. Which was fine, because I like his car -- it's fast. Although since he's reading this, I will say that even though I really wanted to fly down 6th Avenue, I did not. But I wanted to. I didn't. But I wanted to. Anyway.

What did we learn from this? Dr. Prick? On my list – and not the good one. The sign at the tow yard that says “Beware of Dog”? Not just an idle threat. And most importantly? Apparently this means I’m going to have to learn to parallel park. Dammit.

Listen all y'all it's a sabotage

I am an expert on the subject of sabotage. In high school, I could sabotage other people’s relationships to get the boy I wanted – yep – I was a boyfriend stealer. It was easy – I have this sixth sense when it comes to reading people’s intentions, and I put it to use. I can spot a cheater a mile away. So if I thought it might be fun, I’d use it to my advantage.

After a while, I let go of the boyfriend stealing. My relationships with girls were way more important than a fling with a guy (although I’d like to say for the record that I NEVER tried to steal a guy from a friend) and plus, come on – grow up.

So since I couldn’t in good conscience sabotage other people’s relationships, I started sabotaging my own. And I’ve become really good at it – so good, in fact, that most of the time? I don’t even realize I’m doing it. I attribute some of that to the fact that I tend to make certain decisions without thinking first. Don’t ask me to decide what restaurant to go to, because I can’t make a decision like that. But if it involves something I perceive as fun, well, the decision is made – the word “consequences” never crosses my mind.

So why do I do this? THAT is an excellent question. Maybe it’s because, as I mentioned, I have a little fear of commitment. Obviously I’m capable of it, as I have sustained long term relationships before, but as I get older and the prospect of being with one person rears it’s head, well, the fear sets in. Because I doubt myself. I doubt that I’ll make the right decision when it comes down to it. I’d like to THINK that I will, but really? I have a hard time making decisions about what to eat and what to wear. So long term, life altering things make me a little nerv -- uh, is it getting warm in here? Do you remember that scene in the original “Star Wars” where they’re in that room and the walls and ceilings start moving in on them? Is the room doing that RIGHT NOW?

See what I mean?

So. In lieu of risk, I choose sabotage. It’s safer that way. If I start to have feelings about someone that I think I can’t control, or that I’m certain couldn’t POSSIBLY be reciprocated, well, I’ll do something to push them away. They may not know it, it may seem like the opposite entirely because I’m tricky like that, but it generally works. Of course, it’s stupid of me, because the whole reason I pushed them away is because I wanted them closer, but hey, potato, potahto, right? Yes, I’m lame. Fully aware of that. I’ll stay at a job I hate because if I’m unhappy in my life, I have something to blame it on, rather than looking for what the REAL problem is. I keep most of the guys in my life in the “friends” category because it’s safe that way. And maybe the guys I’ve dated recently haven’t been total asses, but instead, it’s been me – I get so tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop that I drop it myself to avoid getting in deeper and having actual feelings about someone. And then I’ll pick unavailable guys so that I can tell myself that I’m totally moving forward and working towards a good relationship, when in actuality, I’m staying right where I’m at. Running for mayor of Safetown. Oh the ridiculousness of it is seemingly neverending. Other than that, I’m a total gem. You’d be lucky to have me.

Kendra said something yesterday that I keep thinking about. She said “Most girls die to hear ‘I love you’ from a guy. I would much rather hear ‘I love you – and I’ll be here for you no matter what’. It’s the ‘no matter what’ that’s important to me.”

So yeah. No matter what. I need someone who will see that my pushing them away isn’t for any other reason than self-protection and who will understand that. Because the truth is, my heart gets involved early on and so I have to spend the rest of the time on the defense. I’m good – I know I am. It just takes some effort to get past the initial layers is all.