Reality Bites

“Hello, this is Lauren. She’s not here right now, but if you leave your name and your number, she might get back to you.”

I had a realization at around 2:45 a.m. Saturday: I’ve been dissociating for at least 4 business days.

The situation is delicate and I’ve spent the time since trying to find a way through.

No amount of green smoothie consumption can save me now. I have to take my advice from the ultimate pretentious a*hole of the 90s – Troy Dyer.

“There’s no point to any of this. It’s just a random lottery of meaningless tragedies and a series of near escapes. So, I take pleasure in the details. You know, a quarter pounder with cheese…the sky 10 minutes before it rains….”

For my own well-being, I MUST take pleasure in the every day details. Otherwise, the phantom limb grows and grows and becomes too heavy to bear. The depression becomes a house guest I can’t evict.

When I can take in the details – my cat lounging peacefully in the sun, a matcha latte that tastes just right and getting to truly feel myself letting go through solo dance parties in my kitchen – these ordinary moments are where I find purpose in waking up and doing things all over again the next.

Isn’t that what we have hope for? To carve out ordinary moments in our day that keep us from self-destruction and instead on the path to self – wherever that takes us.

The reality I am living in is not what I truly wanted, but subconsciously needed.

And it bites.

I have battled the depression dragon for the majority of my short life and each day is truly a choice. That’s what I struggle to explain to people who don’t wake up with dread weighing on their chest like a cinder block.

I can make a choice to be grateful, to appreciate the positives each day and I do, but the depression still lingers in a dark corner of my mind. Waiting.

The depression I was given was not a fucking choice I made, but throughout my life it has been a series of choices on how to manage a mind that is not actively working with me 98.7% of the time.

As humans, our lives are made of a series of choices and we tend to choose the most workable ones, the ones that fit the narrative we have for ourselves.

We have the choice every day to write new stories, instead of sticking to the narratives that may have once worked for us, but may not fit who we are now or what we are experiencing.

Whatever we are experiencing now, it is important to be gentle with ourselves. A $13 green juice will not solve our issues nor will drinking 1.5 bottles of wine.

Temporary salves can’t heal deep, embedded stories. At least, that’s what I tell myself. For me, intense self-maintenance is where I find it easier to revise my own stories and burn the chapters that advocate for self-destruction and the pushing of my own red button.

I am ending my vacation early from Dissociation Island and headed back to Reality – where the coffee is mediocre, the bills are still waiting, but at least it’s sunny and my favorite song is welcoming me back -Pleasure is found through the details.

Until Then.