Sometimes I feel like a really weird person, cuz I have all these conflicting things going on in my head at the same time, or right next to each other.
Like I’ve been feeling pretty good, but worn down lately because of the new job and associated feelings of not making a difference as well as the requisite long hours. Lauren has been pretty down and depressed lately for no particular reason, so I’ve been trying to help her with that which is tiring and stressful, but at the same time we passed the 2 year mark on Sunday and that is really cool, and I’m super happy to be with her. I wouldn’t trade that for all the depressed days..but it still feels a little weird with those two things juxtaposed like that in my life.
I find in the midst of weird times and stressful things little words spoken to me or random things during the day can set me off towards falling into a superficial “super-ben” kind of thing where I have “THE ANSWER FOR EVERYONE’S PROBLEMS!!!” (*said with hands on hips and cape flapping in wind*) or into a cynical hyper-paranoid land of ‘everyone hates me, I hate everyone, and I feel like shit.”
I found the last day and a half, for not much of any reason at all I’ve been feeling the downward thing. This usually puts me into one of two modes: 1) bitch – i.e. complain too much about little things in an attempt to vent feelings so they will go away and 2) put head down, work really hard to accomplish things that need to be done…and try to distract myself from said feelings.
This is usually ineffective when driving because there are lots of people on the road who do little things that I find annoying…and even if it isn’t quiet (like cuz I have the ipod playing a sermon or something) I usually find myself mostly alone with my thoughts there. Praying rarely helps unless I have a several hour stretch set aside in which I can do that, which is hard right now cuz I’m trying to work a lot of hours and pay attention to my depressed wife as well as soak up water off of the sound equipment at the church every third weekend, and fix computers that phantasmically decide to stop working and start again.
So, all in all, my life is pretty good, but it just feels shitty I think because there is a lot of pressure on me at the moment.
I mostly just wish this pattern of odd melancholy didn’t happen the way it does, and that it wouldn’t be so predictable….predictable unwanted thinking and behaviors make me feel stupid because they should be unavoidable or at least easily dealt with.
But alas, that is so rarely the case.