Happy Happy Happy

Today I was perky! I got up before the alarm and put on my spring shirt. I did my hair and I smiled and laughed. I talked about happy things, positive topics of conversation. I smiled and laughed and responded with witty or sarcastic remarks to well-meaning if uncomfortable questions. I sat up straight and held my shoulders back and I walked without dragging my feet. I played with Kid-3 while we waited for the Shrink and I joked with the other kids before dinner.

I was perky!

|
|
|
V

LOL

|
|
|
V

Want the real story?

I WAS perky! And I did do all those all those things I said. (Did you think I was LYING? *raised eyebrow*) But I used the facts like statistics - I made them say what I wanted them to. The fact is, I got up early because I never went to sleep. And I forced the perkiness with every ounce of strength in me. I was working on the "fake it til you make it" theory and let me tell you, it doesn't work the way they say it should.

By 2 o'clock, I had a migraine so bad I had to take triple the dose of my anti-nausea med just to keep from throwing up. And I was exhausted. And did I end up feeling the perkiness I was portraying? HELL NO! I smiled because I practiced it. I held my shoulders back because I reminded myself to do it. I held positive conversations because I rehearsed them ahead of time. Everything I did to be perky was a carefully created set of conscious behaviors. I didn't FEEL perky, not even listening to Sarah describe how to be Happy Happy Happy.

On the other hand, I steered clear of the "May" issue in therapy this morning, focusing instead on parenting techniques. (We have instituted Essay Writing as consequences for sibling fighting. This should be interesting. *rolls eyes*) The Med-Shrink commented that I've lost weight. (Um, no, doc, but thanks.) And offered to have me not come back for two months. (Um, no, I think I'd better check in next month. I haven't made it through this season without ending up in the hospital in what? 4 years? 5? I am determined this year to stay away, but it brings with it a desperation of sorts, this feeling of being irrevocably trapped. So I think I'd best come again next month.) My SIL said I looked "great! It's good to see you happy again!" Daddy smiled and laughed and joked with me at lunch. And my FIL said it's good to see me doing so well.

Being perky made everyone else so much more comfortable around me today. Why can't I be like that all the time? Even if I don't feel it, why can't I do it? It took everything I had just to hold it up for 7 hours and I simply couldn't keep the mask up any longer. I feel like I've been hit by a truck.

How did women in the 50's do it? They cooked and cleaned and raised the children and supported their husbands and stifled their own hopes and dreams to lift up other people's. They smiled when they wanted to cry and dropped their gaze when they wanted to fight back. How did they do that? I want to turn off me and be them. Remember the movie The Stepford Wives? And how it was just "awful" to turn those women into robots that acted perfectly? All I can say is SIGN ME UP!!! I want to WANT to vacuum in heels and pearls.

But all I want to do is sleep. I want to hide away in the world of dreams and illusions. And if I can't actually sleep, I'll settle for staying "Underwater" - that place right before you fall asleep or wake up where you are not quite in either world. I want to stay safe in that dimension where everything makes sense even when it makes no sense.

I can't leave. I can't do that to my kids. I can't destroy their lives because I despise myself. I still think they would be better off with a different mother. Hubby would be better off with a different wife. But I can't force it on them without irreparably damaging them. So I have to stay - for them. I don't want to be here, not at all. But I don't have the choice of leaving.

Well, technically I DO have the choice. We *always* have a choice, as the Shrink once told me (then tried to take back when he didn't like where I took my agreement with his statement). It is that hideous ability to make these choices that has defined me. Given the opportunity I will make the wrong choice every time. I CHOSE Him over telling. I CHOSE Hubby over Katy. I CHOSE to have my kids. I CHOOSE to sleep when I should be acting perky. I CHOOSE to be depressed too, if the vast majority of people in my life are correct.

Is it any wonder that I abhor making decisions, even simple ones? As a child, my decisions were always wrong. I chose to act out and chose to let Him protect me. And look what happened there - the second worst set of choices I have ever made. Choices regarding Mom were completely unpredictable - one time she would be thrilled, the next she would be livid. It's not like I was always wrong; I could have learned from that. I was always confused, had no idea what criteria to use for making decisions and judgements. The older I got, the more trouble my decisions seem to cause. Every choice I made reinforced every fear I had. All the way up until I made my worst choice ever, one I can never fix or take back, one that haunts me every day.

I see her everywhere. I know the life she should have. She is as real as the others in my dreams and I get seriously confused upon waking to find things aren't as they should be. I have to stop myself from having conversations with her when I am awake because no one else has ever known her. I can see her, I can hear her, I can SMELL her... but I can never touch her. And it hurts so bad, knowing what I did.

Please God... I don't want to be here. I can't leave my children - they would blame themselves even though that is so far from the truth that it isn't even funny. But I don't want to be here. Please can I wake up now? This has to be a dream, please let this just be one helluva nightmare.

"Please God, make me a bird so I can fly far, far away from here..."
"Please God, make me a bird so I can fly far, far away from here..."
"Please God, make me a bird so I can fly far, far away from here..."
"Please God, make me a bird so I can fly far, far away from here..."
"Please God, make me a bird so I can fly far, far away from here..."
"Please God, make me a bird so I can fly far, far away from here..."
"Please God, make me a bird so I can fly far, far away from here..."
(Jenny, Forrest Gump)