Bad to Better

Not Good
"Katie," Sibling gasped when she rushed in the room. "I'm sorry! I saw him coming in and I was too far away and I didn't think it would help to yell 'don't go in there!' down the hall."

"It's fine," I said, still blushing as I adjusted my dress around hips and tugged at the hem. "It was probably time someone saw me mostly naked anyway." Then I shook my head and walked with any remaining dignity back to my office.

It was completely innocent. I had to remove my bra (in the name of science!) (seriously) and Sibling left the room before I tugged my dress up to slip the straps of my lingerie back up my arms. I was absently reading one of the signs on the wall and when another colleague walked in, I was standing in profile to the door, bra not yet covering me and dress hanging around my neck. Not classy. Pretty horrifying. And all before 9AM.

Better
I decided to call it a day a couple hours later, returning home to spend the afternoon with my parents. We went for lunch, riding in the Awesome Van (which is honestly ridiculously large - have you ridden in a conversion van before? It's like a small apartment on wheels.) and decided to hunt for clearance patio furniture at several stores before stopping at Target to pick up a few essentials.

"It's a good thing I'm better," I said at one point. Dad had been reciting his standard list of complaints, asking why I'd stained the floor in front of my fireplace by putting a plant there. Or why my air conditioning was set at 65 degrees (it was not). Or why Chienne was licking her paw. Mom was disappointed that the Webkinz site was down and was teasing me about the old newspapers they'd unearthed. While in high school, I'd written a column. I'd post one to let you read it but I can't make it past the first two paragraphs of any of them without being compelled to put it down and blush at my youthful efforts.

"That was deep!" I defended myself as Mom giggled over my post about shoes. "It was a fabulous analogy about growing up and transitions!" I frowned when I realized I'd written posts about shoes on this blog and wondered if I'd feel abashed at my worldview at some point. (I'd check now but I'm a little afraid to look.)

"My grandma was proud of me," I said, pulling one sheet of newsprint toward me and tracing my fingertip over her name at the top of the page, missing her terribly as I gazed at the loopy script. She'd made marks by my name and I decided she must have left it out at the retirement community so her friends could read what I'd written.

"We were proud of you, too," Mom said and I nodded, resting my head on her shoulder and feeling glad they were here.

Good
I continue to recover. No real sadness. A bit more engagement and thoughtfulness rather than the slow blankness that's existed lately.

I had curled in bed about an hour ago, nearly asleep before I remembered I hadn't taken my pills. When I might have blown it off a month ago, I dutifully came back downstairs and took 1.5 tablets. I'm continuing to learn how to manage this - figuring out what stressors to avoid (more to come on this) and how to cope when I feel myself slipping. But this episode appears to be drawing to a close.

So, again, I'm so very grateful for your kind and supportive comments and emails. It helped to feel noticed and valued when I was stuck questioning why people can't seem to care about me for very long. Truly - thank you.