When 2018 rolled in I told myself that I was going to make this the best year yet. “Life’s to short to pay bills and die” was what I told myself- over and over again. “We are going to take tons of day trips, have all kinds of adventures and make a shit ton of memories!!” And I truly believed it.Then on January 18th, I was told that the job I was doing wasn’t working out. It wasn’t because my work wasn’t good or that I wasn’t doing my job but issues in management and I was let go. It was a major setback for me. The job worked out perfectly, I didn’t have to drive anywhere (since it was a work from home job) and if I wanted to go out it did not matter where I was I could still work. It gave me the freedom to be with my kids and make a decent contribution to the family (which we used mainly as our “fun money”). Sometimes however, my money was needed to help pay the bills too. But, losing this job took a big chunk of what we can do for fun off the plate.
I tried not to sweat it to much, after all I still had another job that my best friend had gotten me in early summer that brought in a few extra bucks but no where near as much as I was making at the other one.
January 23rd rolled around and I woke at 3am feeling like I was dying, literally. I tried waking my husband but that wasn’t happening (you could drive a truck right through the bedroom wall and you’d be lucky if you got him to roll over). For a brief moment, I even considered calling an ambulance. It took me a minute to calm the panic in my mind and realized “Fuck, I have the flu”.
While there is never a good time to get the flu, this time in particular was definitely NOT the right time. Ya see, my best friend that had gotten me the job where I worked had decided that it was time for her to focus more on her real estate career and having an office job interfered with that, which was completely understandable. So, we hired a replacement. Well! The day I came down with the flu was the day that I was supposed to go into the office and train her. When I tell you there was no way in hell that I was getting to that office, I meant it. I couldn’t barely move and was as sick as a dog. So much so, that my husband had to call out of work to bring me to The Emergency Room. Where, as expected, I was told I had the flu. They told me I was contagious for 10 days & it will take two to four weeks to be back to normal (depending on your Lupus) stay away from people and all that preventative blah blah blah.
At this point, My husband quarantined me to my room. “Keep your damn flu in there with you, we don’t want that shit” (and I didn’t blame him one bit!) So now, I’m not allowed out unless I need to use the bathroom or to get my next cup of tea. For 10 whole days and nights I was stuck in my four walls with Netflix and each and every day I lost my mind a little more. But. I couldn’t risk getting my kids sick so I made sure to be as strict as I could about making sure to not put them at risk.
So not only did I miss getting an extra day in during the week to train the new girl, I missed all my shifts for the next two weeks. Long story short without going into to much detail, there were several discussions and debates between my husband and myself along with the opinions and advice of a few friends and family members and in the end it was determined that for what was it was worth, it wasn’t worth it for me to keep the job.
While I agreed; This just added another check mark to my ever growing list of “Shit that’s gone wrong”.
At this point, I’m still suffering from the flu, hidden away from people, basically feeling like a prisoner in my own home and body. (which by the way- if I were ever to get in trouble with the law, there is no way in hell I could ever do hard time).
When my 10 days was up and I was feeling much better, a couple of our friends came over to spend time with us. I have to tell you, seeing people again felt wonderful; but I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t really feeling it.
The next night, our friend asked if he could come over to watch “WWE Monday Night Raw”, I told him sure (Lance was going to watch it anyways I fuck it what was the difference). When he got here we said our “Hello”’s and into my bedroom I went, closed the door and laid down.
That’s when it hit me, seasonal depression had officially kicked into high gear. For the next week, I didn’t even want to leave my room. I would get the kids on the bus, and return to my bed for another Netflix binge (man did that make for a messy house!). I had no interest in talking to anyone or doing anything. I felt like a complete and utter worthless piece of shit.
Luckily one of my best friends understands my depression, she’s been around for my ups and my downs and knows what I need when I don’t want to be bothered & would much rather curl up in my blanket and shut out the world. She came over yesterday and sat around the house with me, we watched movies and did a bunch of scrolling on our phones. (sure nothing about that sounds like it’s was all that exciting but, when your dealing with depression someone just being there helps).
Before she left last night we decided that it was time to break the cabin fever and venture out into the world; so we made plans to go to the thrift store to check out some books (got a few that look pretty awesome!). We even had plans to stop by the lake afterward just to check out the water with our new books (from inside the car because it’s too damn cold to be sitting outside today)
The lake plan never went down though. Our other friend called to see if we wanted to go check out a house she was looking at to potential buy and we drove to the next town over with her to do that.
It felt good to get out of the house (as I currently lay in my bed again) but it kinda sucks things didn’t go as planned. The lake is my happy place, I go there to find my “center” and these last few weeks I’ve needed it more than I have in a long time.
Tomorrow is another day and hopefully I can force myself to go sit on the dock for a little and try to shake these winter blues!
Don’t ever let anyone tell you depression isn’t real. Offer any help that’s given to you. Trust that your TRUE friends have your best interests at heart. But most importantly, know that your not alone.
Mrs. Scaper’s Paper 