Fall Break

Is already here

Yesterday afternoon marked the beginning of Sophie’s fall break. School does not resume until October 20, if you can believe it. Time is moving forward way too fast for my liking. I feel particularly bad for Sophie right now because this is the fifth consecutive weekend that I've been too ill to do much of anything. I'm also nervous since she's got the kids’ entrepreneur fair next Saturday at the mall, and she wants my help with making her Halloween costume. Oh, we're also supposed to go to the orchard with a classmate on Thursday.

I'm just really anxious and worried that I'm going to let my daughter down. I don't know if I'm going to be able to do everything she needs me to do. She wants to make fudge to sell at the fair, in lieu of the candles and REALLY wanted to make. I talked her into waiting on the candles since that would require a bunch of supplies we don't have, plus necessities like burn testing. Now, a week outfrom her sales day, I've got chocolate and cupcake liners for her too make fudge, but I still need to get the milk and boxes or bags for the fudge.

Normally, I plan out project far in advance so we don't have to scramble so much. Dealing with so much illness like nausea, migraine, dry heaves and bathroom issues has essentially paused all of my usual plans. I even had to cut out of physical therapy early, but thankfully, my Baker’s cyst is doing much better. So for now, I'm walking pretty well, but also rarely leaving the apartment.

That night not feel so terrible if I could handle more projects including writing or even reading here at home, but this month+ stretch has officially become the least productive period of my life.

As you might imagine, that's contributed greatly to my depression… and it's also made our finances worse than ever.

I'm taking the small steps I can take to improve this frustration—trying to get better rest, adding the supplements to deal with my nutritional deficiencies, going through more counseling for my mental health, and adjusting my tirzepatide regimen. Too much of my life remains up in the air, however. I've been struggling more to get everything we need, struggling more to talk about where I'm at, and struggling more to get our monthly bills paid.

I feel really guilty about all of it, and it's definitely gotten more difficult to ask for help. I feel terrible and embarrassed to be going through more setbacks. It's also opened my eyes to all of the internal stigma and shame I still hang onto about depression. And it's reminded me of all the shame I feel as my confidence has been so severely shaken about my purpose and abilities as a writer.

Since I thought writing was going slowly before this awkward stretch, I can't really express my full frustration about my newly reduced speed. I don't want my words to feel depressing to readers, and I don't want to be a drag or a burden on anyone. All I can really say about this shame is that being alive in this world is hard. Being human is sometimes so hard.

For all of us.

I wish I could speak more eloquently on the subject. I wish I could be profoundly positive and uplifting. Instead, I'm afraid I just have to settle for being honest that all of this is really so hard, and that I genuinely do feel so sad, and I feel so much deep pain about simply feeling like a failure.

The thing is, I actually am doing my best these days, and I'm also not giving up. I honestly do FEEL like giving up a lot lately. But I'm working through those feelings as much as I can. Sometimes, that's the best we can do.