(TW: Mental Health, Mental Health Struggles, Mention of Health-Related Topics, Coarse Language, Imposter Syndrome, Burnout, Disabled)
This post officially sucks to make.
Today at 10am, I dropped Angel off at O’Hare, and she went back to Canada. One of the first messages she sent me was “Why am I in Canada? I hate fucking Canada.” -If you’re on TikTok, you understand, if not, I’m not sorry but, this is 100% our catchphrase right now. She’s safe, thankful that there’s no snow yet, and already misses home. I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse, honestly. Because when I tell you that I begged this girl to stay, and I do mean begged with m whole fucking heart, I mean it. Every time she leaves, I think that it’ll be easier, that maybe I won’t end up working myself into a total cry-graine (crying induced migraine) but, even the mention of her leaving has me in tears again.
Nobody gets it. A and I have been friends for 17-years. Together we’ve waged the wars on dead parents, the passing away of pets, jobs that come and go, and all three of my vehicles. Friends have come and gone, relationships that have come and passed, as well as publishing my first, second, and third poetry collections with Amazon. (One was under a penname that has since been retired, the other two are currently being reformatted so that they can be released in both softcover and hardcover. They ARE coming back!) And I know that she’ll be with me through whatever comes next. But, for now, I’m fucking struggling. I wasn’t ready to be alone again, to have to face the doctors’ appointments, and needles, and long drives, and everything else on my own again.
Someday, hopefully, we’ll stop saying goodbye and she’ll stay here forever.
But today was not that day. So, I just kind of feel like I’m having a quarter life crisis. She mentioned that she’s going to be 30 next year, and while I know that thirty isn’t old, it got me thinking a lot about where I’m at in my own life. At 27 most of the people I call friends are getting engaged, they’re getting married, having babies, they have great jobs and whatnot… and I’m disabled.
I used to think that was a bad word, and it’s not. I don’t think that word means what my past-self thought it did? Internalized ableism is something that I struggle with. Especially when I’m out and about, I’m learning that mobility aids are not a “last resort” or something I have to “earn” by feeling bad enough, or sick enough. If it’ll make my life easier, then I’m going to use it, and do it because, it’s not worth digging myself into a pain flare that I cannot escape from.
So, even though it’s NaNoWriMo, her leaving came at a complete and utter shock to me. To all of us, we had less than four days from being told that there was a plane ticket booked to the time she left. That means that I’m not going to be writing as much as I “should” be because, honestly, I’m grieving. I’m grieving the person I had coffee with every day, made dinner with every night, rode around with in the car for hours because doctors’ appointments have become a full-time job, with overtime!
Have I laid in bed all day, sad and depressed? Fuck yes.
Is my mental health struggling right now? Fuck yes.
Will I be okay? Probably. And will she be back? Definitely, you can’t keep the two of us apart for very long. There have been those who have tried. In the meantime, I’m going to let myself be sad. I’m going to try to comfort Bear, the fat dog who doesn’t understand where his other hooman has gone. I’m going to try to comfort Piglet, the sugar glider, who has no idea where his best friend who gives him his goldfish cracker have gone. And I’m going to try to comfort our rats who have no idea where their other mommy has gone, and why she isn’t sneaking them snackies the second I turn my back. This is not an easy transition; it never gets easier. Hello, is always easy, we snap right back into place but, goodbye is never easy; it always cuts like a knife.
Maybe tomorrow, I will spend time on my WIP either before or after PT. It depends on how bad physical therapy kicks my ass, and hopefully, it won’t be so bad once I tell my tech that I’ve had a rough week, I don’t know. Or maybe, I’ll come home, crawl right back into bed, and pretend I don’t exist for another 24-hours. Both options are perfectly valid because, I believe that it is perfectly find to take time to yourself, your mental health, and to participate in self-care no matter how that looks for you.
I have quite a few pre-written posts from right before surgery, and you’ll be seeing those soon. Some will have little notes added in from present-me, others will have to be rewritten as a whole but, that’s a project for a different day. For now, I’m going to crawl right back under all of my blankies, flip on Amazon Prime, and watch the Scooby-Doo movies. Why? Because I need comfort, and I used to love watching these movies with my Papa growing up. Hopefully, I’ll also write a post soon about my current WIPs, and the serial stories that I have planned to go up on Radish Fiction, and Kindle Vella in the not so distant future.
Goodnight,
-Sky
Skyla N. Lambert
Author | Blogger | Bookworm | Depressed as Fuck
E. skylanarissalambert@gmail.com
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