July 28, 2023
I’m in between two worlds, struggling to move into the next, unable to move squarely and confidently into the future.
I’ve been mired in depression for the last month, perhaps longer. I should keep track using some type of scale. I’ve done that before. But I’m too depressed to keep track using some type of scale. I can only look back at minor events and remember how I felt when those events occurred. There has been nothing major. The breakup has been hard, but there’s been nothing so significant as to take me down.
The ongoing bullshit with mom is just the regular ongoing bullshit with mom. I know I have caregiver burnout. Maybe that’s what it is. But it shouldn’t be that which is paralyzing me, I’m used to that. There’s a rhythm to it. But being her caregiver is consuming, and there’s not much positive, most certainly no reprieve. Maybe I’m not seeing clearly, underestimating, minimizing. I don’t know. Regardless, it’s been bad for several weeks now.
How I feel reminds me of how I felt when I left Louisville to return to Washington to care for my mother. My mother was hospitalized with necrotizing fasciitis and not expected to live. I wrote this on the plane, May 10, 2019. Always I remember that date, that specific date. I knew I was crossing a threshold from which there was no return.
I feel that same unreal uncertain feeling of not knowing where I am, where I’m heading, and where I’ll end up. It’s incredibly unsettling, that sense of not belonging anywhere. I’m in some in between place, unstuck, flailing, with no place to rest and no security. It’s fucking terrifying.
But the most terrifying thing is not knowing how long this untethered feeling will last. It’s excruciating.
Photo by Sasha Freemind on Unsplash
You’re straddling two worlds.
You put your right foot out into the future, the world you know you’re moving towards. But you don’t put any weight on that foot yet. Still, all your weight is on the foot that’s in the now world.
But where you’re going, that world keeps pulling you and calling you and requesting things of you and wanting you to be there because you’re needed there.
So, you tentatively begin to put some weight on your right foot. But that means less of you is resting where you’re at.
It’s fucking terrifying.