self loathing

I was Charles Dickens in another life.

Or, maybe I wasn't him. Maybe I was that crazy lady in Great Expectations.

What was her name? Havingham? Haversham?

Havisham.

(I googled it.)

Remember her? The nutcase who stopped the clocks in her house to the exact moment of her betrayal at the alter and who never took off her wedding dress and lived in her rotting mansion with her crazy adopted daughter?

Is that me? Or, future me?

So, maybe I'm not the crazy spinster but I know something about Great Expectations. I am the queen of creating Great Expectations.

Always, always setting up expectations. Thinking things like "oh, this will be wonderful" or "oh, this is the person I will marry" or "oh, I am going to publish my book" or "oh, this moment will be the moment of all moments and I will always remember this impending moment."

And then it doesn't happen that way.

I spiral.

And it sucks because I wish I could just have a bad day and leave it at that. Why can't I just have a bad day? Why are bad days always accompanied by fear that the depression will creep back into my life? I am once again thinking things like "Do I need meds?" or "Can I beat this with theraphy?" and "Maybe if I stopped eating junk food, I'd feel better," and "I wish I could feel like my life is not out of my control."

Spiral down.

It starts with a tightness in my chest, a lump in my throat, a burning in my eyes. Anything to keep from crying.

Don't happy people have bad days when all they do is cry?

I don't know who I am sometimes, but I am not the famed English author and I am not a crazy spinster and I am not a boy with a stupid name and I am not a convict. But I know a little something about Great Expectations.

wg