Hate

  I hate the laundry, how it's never done, how it expand to fill all the time and space available. 

I hate the dishes, how they are somehow simultaneously all dirty and all in the dishwasher clean and waiting to be unloaded.

I hate school drop off and pick up, the hours I spend in lines, following rules, just to get my girls out the door of my car and into school.

I hate when my kids fight, when they scream in each other's faces and push each other's buttons. I hate that we can't get out the door without one or more of them screaming or crying or losing their ever loving minds. I hate that at 9 and 11, the anxieties and worries and pain have gotten bigger instead of getting better. I hate that I can't fix it.

I hate when I try to explain my problems to someone, and instead of listening and acknowledging, they try to tell me why, really, I shouldn't feel the way I do because everyone compares, because I do things well, because everyone has different talents, because really what do I have to be upset about or disappointed about or discouraged about really ... Really.

Do something

 I am sitting on the couch with my feet up, my feet bare in front of me and my toes wiggling, even though outside the window, there is snow. Leaning against my chest is a half full cup of blueberry white tea that I choked on moments before I started writing, when while drinking I tried to answer my eldest daughter's question about whether Piper appeared again in the last two Trials of Apollo books. She is writing. She is always writing. 

I feel like I've been sitting on my couch for years.

Depression is an old friend that comes to visit from time to time. That brings with it heaviness and darkness and doubt, an unwillingness to try anything, an inability to get off the couch. And I sit with it, I make it tea, I put out plates of Girl Scout cookies. And I sit.

I'm tired of sitting.

My cheeks burn with the salt left behind by dried tears, tears that have been falling silently down my face all day, though somehow no one who lives in my house has noticed. 

Today, I feel discouraged. 

I've tried things. I've been subbing again, but it has ended up being only one day a week. I tried to set up a teachers pay teachers store, but I haven't actually sold anything. I listened to podcasts and books on overcoming depression, on overcoming writers block, on starting a teacher business.

And nothing has broken through this shadow. Nothing has "worked."

I empty my dishwasher. I fold my laundry. I read Trials of Apollo to my children. I watch Mrs. Maisel. I go to bed. 

I want to do something. I want to do something that matters. I want to get off this couch, to get out of this funk, to get out into the world, to be seen and heard to DO SOMETHING.

I set down my tea.

I pick up my pen.

"I am sitting on my couch."

It's the only place I know to begin.