Serious Funk

Thursday night, I hit bottom.  Literally.  I fell down the stairs.  I blame it on slippery socks and complete and utter exhaustion.  I sat in a heap at the bottom of my stairs and cried.  As Carla came running down the stairs to check on me, I truly felt like I just gave up in my heart.

Well, there has been forward progress.  I am no longer spontaneously erupting into tears (well, maybe, it almost happened once today, but I managed to stop the tears before they fell).  I can feel things getting better, however I still find myself deeply entrenched in a pretty serious funk.  It's hard.  I want to return to my normal self.  I want to be able to sleep through the night and not deal with the headaches I have had for the past week.  I want to be able to not get frustrated by things easily.  I want to be able to make it through a meeting without yelling at my administrators (okay, that might happen no matter what condition I was in).  I want to just get over it and be okay.  But, sadly, I haven't been able to.

I find myself stuck in this place where I want to act like everything is okay because I know that is what people expect.  But, at the same time, I am just not there and the more I pretend to be okay, the worse it seems to get.  So I do what I tend to do best.  I retreat.  I don't answer phone calls.  I don't reach out.  I tend to walk into my classroom early in the morning and stay hidden safely inside of the walls of my room.

I have been overwhelmed, as I often am, by the support from people in my life.  The most unexpected people have reached out in the most wonderful ways.  I wish people knew what a difference it makes.  When I go to extreme measures to isolate myself, it makes a world of difference just to know people are still thinking of me and ready to provide help when I am ready to accept it.  As I have said before, this journey would be much harder without the support of the incredible people in my life.

But I guess that support can only do so much.  I don't want to let people down.  I don't want people to see that I am just not ready to be positive again quite yet.  I don't want people to know that I am still just really sad.  I know it's funny that I say I don't want people to know and yet I am writing it for all of you to see.  So I guess what I really mean is that I don't really want to explain all those things.  I just want to be all of those things.

In a way, I guess this post is sort of my apology.

I am sorry for not being much of a good time right now.  I am sorry for not really carrying my weight at work or with my family or with my friends.  I am sorry for not really being the Jess that I usually am.  I like to think that I will get back there soon.  I like to think that this headache of the past few days will go away and I will resume taking joy in the things that used to bring me joy.  It is just going to take a few days.

In the mean time, Carla and I are about to go vote.  For tonight, I will hope for good things with this election.  And then, perhaps after that, I will hope for good things in general.