I'm not dead/ just floating

The problem with using your blog as a diary and simultaneous motivator is obvious, when you look at it: it's the very simple fact that when things are hard in your life, you don't want to make a record of it to go back to; but then you can't really blog so you end up feeling alone. And as someone who considers myself a fighter, with that very New England spirit of hating whiners, even more so when it's myself doing the whining, I basically boxed myself in, and left myself with no one to talk to. And I shut you all out. And for that, I'm sorry.

I think blogs are supposed to represent us at our most honest: the good days and the bad. And when I'm doing badly, well, I tend to push people away and not want to talk about it, because I'm pretty sure you don't want to hear it. And I hate talking about it, I really do. And I sometimes think this blog is supposed to be the place where I put my best face forward (except for the occasional hilarious story about me knocking myself unconscious on a tree) and I think I need to just knock that the hell off.

So many of you left beautiful, wonderful, amazingly supportive comments that I just never even responded to - which is crappy of me - and I want to say belatedly that every single one of them made me light up inside and grin and tear up and feel like you guys really do understand me. And a very special shout-out goes to Bathwater, who not only left me incredibly supportive comments but also tirelessly emailed me to check in on me. Bath, you are an amazing man. I can't thank you enough for being such a good friend.

Things are moving ahead slowly and steadily. To be absolutely and brutally honest, which I'm trying to be a bit more, I have stopped being able to make it to my martial arts classes and without those natural mood-lifting endorphins I get when I exercise, I relapsed into my depression. I don't talk a lot about my depression, mostly because when I work out three days a week I'm usually beating it, but sometimes it gets the better of me, and I hate feeling like I'm admitting defeat when I post about it. But there it is. It is a constant weight on my shoulders, and I am always aware of it, looking for signs of it, looking for when I open my mouth and instead of it being ME who speaks, it is the depression - and it knows all of my back doors and cracks and buttons, this demon, and it's really damn good at making me want to give up.

So I have that to wrestle with, and I'm going to try meditation (if you just rolled your eyes, believe me, I did too, but I'm out of drug-less options at this point) so that I can actually sleep at night and concentrate and not tear up when things aren't 100 percent perfect. I'm also going to be buying a new car in September that I can't really afford, but the constant repairs that I ALSO can't afford will cease and I will be driving a car that I actually like for my two hour daily commute, and that will make things better. I am also auditioning more, moving forward with a second season of my web-series, and I'm going to go restore my soul by camping at Yosemite in early September.

So good things are happening and are on the horizon. I'm horribly behind on reading and commenting on everyone's blogs - again, my apologies. I took a giant step back from this blog, but honestly, now that I think about it, I moved in the wrong direction. I see now that with blogger friends like you guys, I didn't need to step back. I needed to step forward and really listen to how amazingly supportive you guys were, and I'm gonna try to work at doing that from now on.

Much love and light,
Tracy

Gamblers All (by Charles Bukowski)

sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think,
i’m not going to make it, but you laugh inside
remembering all the times you’ve felt that way, and
you walk to the bathroom, do your toilet, see that face
in the mirror, oh my oh my oh my, but you comb your hair anyway,
get into your street clothes, feed the cats, fetch the
newspaper of horror, place it on the coffee table, kiss your
wife goodbye, and then you are backing the car out into life itself,
like millions of others you enter the arena once more.

you are on the freeway threading through traffic now,
moving both towards something and towards nothing at all as you punch
the radio on and get mozart, which is something, and you will somehow
get through the slow days and the busy days and the dull
days and the hateful days and the rare days, all both so delightful
and so disappointing because
we are all so alike and so different.

you find the turn-off, drive through the most dangerous
part of town, feel momentarily wonderful as mozart works
his way into your brain and slides down along your bones and
out through your shoes.

it’s been a tough fight worth fighting
as we all drive along
betting on another day.

**************************************************

I've been reading this poem a lot lately. Not much new to report, still suffering minor setbacks and minor triumphs. But as Bukowski also once said, "It's been a beautiful fight. Still is."

I'm making my way back.

(I WISH the fort I've been hiding in looked like this. I got it from here.)