weekly retro #63: there's a lot of depression in this one
"this pussy depressed" - megan thee stallion
this week was a rough one, but before i get into it i do want to say i'm feeling a lot better now. i was carrying the post-period lows with bad news, the anxiety of responsibility, and sweat from a heat wave that passed through. there was a point where i hit a vape to set off the air purifier to get circulation in the room without dragging my depressed body 3 yards to press the button like a normal person would.
when i'm depressed i feel like this wet bee on the ground. stuck to the floor, wet, in a miserable place, but trying to smile so no one asks if i'm okay. being perceived in these moments makes my skin crawl, and unfortunately i'd been tasked with a couple of events that put me on literal stages.
jamie and i did our first ticketed nyc event, which was a very exciting opportunity that i should have been stoked about at the time. the entire day up until we got on stage to start the show i wanted to crawl into the sewer and set up a home there without telling anyone. i was sweaty, i didn't think i had it in me to be a funny host, and i didn't want to share with my buddies that i was deep in the 'pression. again, i want invisibility in these moments so no one notices how dull i feel. on the train to therapy, a man was having a mental episode and screaming at me and i just sat there and took it the entire trip because i felt nothing but 50 tons of weight mentally and physically.
a major part of this low week was having to watch my little guy, pumagreg, also be depressed as he recovered from his surgery. like me, he's also feeling a lot better today, but the surgeon called the day before the caveat show to give us bad news: the lump they removed from his leg is cancer. i was expecting this, because i always expect bad news - because i often get bad news - but then i was told i had to make an insane choice: have his leg amputated or put him through rounds of radiation therapy. because of his age and his heart, we all agree that amputation is the best choice. maybe the surgeon will amputate my head in a 2-for/bogo deal.
so yeah, the last thing i wanted to do was sing and be funny and see people and be "on". but i resisted, i sang, i made people laugh, and i pushed through. if i didn't, i'd let people down and that would make me feel worse. i want the title of this post to be a content warning about depression, but "the tears of a clown" would have been a good one lol.
it wasn't until friday night that i started to feel like i wasn't smothered in dark clouds. two dear pals, potch and [borat voice] his wife caitlin, were in jersey for a family thing and had time to come by and have some delicious italian food. it was an instant mood change, because i don't see how it could be possible to be in a bad mood around those two.
tomorrow i head to boston for a short consulting gig, which i'm in a better mindset for - the weather dropping from 85 to 55 certainly helped. when i get back, we'll have the staples in pumagreg's leg removed and we start the process of having said leg removed. ugh, i wish they didn't need to remove the entire tumor to determine if he's gotta go through this all over again and worse. the whole situation is so unfair and frustrating, but [rips the vape] that's just showbiz baby.
things i enjoyed this week
- seeing friends in person. hosting with jamie, singing with our audience, and seeing potch and caitlin really did accelerate my climb out of the whole of this depressive episode.
- "enjoy" is a strong word here but i have to shout out vaping weed (legal). even though it's not a habit i want to have, there were moments where if i didn't get my brain to stop being mean to me i wasn't going to leave bed. and it's not even a bad thing to do, it's just that i've never smoked before because i promised my grandma i would never, but she died of emphysema before vaping was a thing so i never got a chance to ask her if it counts. anyway i know that if i'm worried about emphysema i shouldn't vape and this coming week i won't. i sound like such a prude right now lol no one scold me about this or i'll become the joker.
- i made this spicy noodle stir-fry with salt and pepper from big vegan flavor for the first time and it was very, very good.
- every year i watch the coachella livestreams and this year's was fun. i think justin bieber's performance format was actually really cool, at least for week 2. i missed a lot of week 1 and need to catch up.
like i said from the jump, i feel a lot better today. but there were days where i felt really, really bad, and it's important not to ignore that. there's no light without darkness or something like that.
xoxo jenn