Ah Horse Tranquilizers!

Sitting at coffee the other day with yet another one of my gorgeous single friends, we began discussing our weekend.  Going out with friends, great restaurants, entertaining night life, but despite all this we confessed that we found it all quite pointless.  Despite the fact that we had a nice time, it did not make us happy. After blowing a couple hundred dollars, both of us woke up hungover and feeling like crap. In our twenties, nights out were worth the hangover and the abuse to the wallet, but now in our thirties, I could have just as easily sat on my couch with my mother and watched old 80s movies.  Before this conversation I figured, maybe it was just me.  Maybe I make my life too difficult?  Maybe my expectations are too high?  Is it because I lived my twenties to the max and now everything else seems like a letdown?  Did I take a wrong turn someplace and that is why I am on this never-ending road of apathy and what can only be described as drudgery? 

It feels as though I have been treading water for a very long time and it is starting to get tiring.  What is worse is I feel as though I am beginning to sink.  I spent last week at work fighting to keep a contract I had already closed, simply because of ignorance and a misconception. So I basically spent all my time not making a dime and trying to keep the few I had already earned.  And still, we will see what Monday brings in terms of retaining my meager wealth.  This is just a small example of what life has been like.  A series of irritating occurrences that aren’t necessarily moving me backwards, but are definitely not aiding in moving me forward.

I’ve begun to reach for straws. I read my horoscope religiously now and cling to believing when it says things are going to change and my life will move forward. I was especially hopeful when it alluded to a contract being settled.  I have been working on a case for a year that would be the biggest single success of my career, yet like my life, it too is stagnating.  It feels like sitting at the red light in the intersection ready to make a move, yet the light is not turning green.  In the end - horoscopes SUCK!  They are totally inaccurate… well, partly.  They are like predicting the weather in Vancouver – the predictions are only right when it is raining.  Weathermen go to school for this?  The only time my horoscope has an ounce of accuracy is when it says my life will be tough.  Duh!  Didya go to school for that too?!  I’ve started to turn around and around in my head why things seem to be stalled. You know these thoughts: maybe it is not meant to be and in hindsight I will be thankful I did not get my wish.  Or my favorite: work hard and life will unfold as it should.  But what if this is all bullshit and this is just life?  Maybe these are just things we convince yourselves of because we need some excuse for why our lives are stuck in neutral.

Well, three weeks ago these thoughts were proving problematic. It was not a good day.  You could say it was an awful day.  Let’s put it this way:  the Second Narrows bridge seemed like a very feasible option. This coincidently might be the reason why I am now medicated. I assume my doctor thought my new home being so close in proximity to the Second Narrows bridge was a bit of a health risk!  Clinical depression runs in the family and explains a lot about my father’s behavior – except he’s decided to treat it with alcohol and cruelty towards his family.  So now instead of wishing to not wake up in the morning, I wish that when I wake up, my life will magically be better.  Some may call this progress, but it depends on your perspective.  One bonus of what I have determined are horse tranquillizers is for two weeks I was high as a kite! With no munchies!  It was kinda fun, except that I lost my car three times in the haze.  But again, I was stoned and therefore not really bothered by it!

Depression is a difficult thing to understand by those who are able to grasp logic on their bad days.  Everyone gets sad and deals with crap, and I am not saying that other people’s lives are not in the same situation as mine; however, they have the ability to keep perspective.  A person with clinical depression cannot.  Most people think that crazy pills will make you happy.  In fact, all they really do is prevent you from hitting those severe lows.  When I reveal how I feel about my life, people are often shocked.  I am not lonely, I have amazing friends, I’m outgoing and I can appear to be functional.  If I list the amazing people and support I have in my life, it is difficult to believe that I have suicidal thoughts.  Yet for me, the reality is that at times the negative eclipses the positive. I have had a whirlwind year of difficult change, something my horoscope shockingly got right.  Though I have so much to be thankful for in my life, more change needs to happen because I cannot go on living like this.  I am now faced with the challenge of what that change is and how to make myself happy… But at the moment I’m stoned (remember the horse tranquilizers) so the current situation is sitting in a hazy holding pattern.  Not a long-term solution, but infinitely better than the bottom of the Burrard Inlet.