Chronicles of a Late Bloomer

Despite what they say, you can go home again. And again, and again, and again… in all the good ways and the bad. I’ve been struggling through the month of April. Warning signs have included: bingeing, isolating, complaining about constant overwhelm, obsessively planning for the future (instead of living in the moment), anxiety attacks, falling behind on obligations, a general sense of fatigue or malaise, money woes, a world overtaken by clutter, and — did I mention? — BINGEING.

I had a great time at home with my family. I thoroughly enjoyed my night out with the girls. I relaxed, I got hit on, I came home to a puppy so smooshable that you’d get a stomach-ache. Life isn’t so bad, when you think about it.

But signs of trouble exist elsewhere: (1) I have continued to pursue my current health scare with my doctor. (2) I have had multiple interviews for new jobs and will probably have one or more offers next week, yet still feel that I may want to stay with my current employment because (3) I have decided to pursue my PhD applications sooner than later. (4) I may have to move from my current home and that always stresses me out. (5) My brother recently came out to my parents and I have been working overtime to manage everyone’s emotions about that.

On top of everything, and probably most importantly, (6) my wonderful relationship with Record Store Romeo may be slowly winding to an end. I don’t know for sure about this, but two nights before I boarded the plane for home, we had our first, “Maybe we should just break up” talk. For now, things are sort of back to normal, but we both feel, to varying degrees, that we are living on borrowed time.

In fact, in therapy yesterday, we pinpointed this as the source of all the frantic, frenetic and destructive energy. I seem to be shoring myself up against what I anticipate will be the most difficult loss of my adult life to this point. In doing so, I have fallen back on my most familiar coping mechanisms: (1) numbing the pain with food, (2) obsessively, compulsively planning contingencies for all of the Great Unknowns of my immediate and far-off future, and (3) making ridiculous amounts of numbered and bulleted lists. Sorry.

I always gain some weight when I go home, but I have gained a total of 10 pounds in April. I am feeling it. I imagine people see me as a gigantic slug, which is funny because I’m still 15-20 pounds lighter than when I first jumped back on the health bandwagon this year, and at that time I didn’t think too much about it. Still, 10 pounds. Insert inappropriate cursewords here, in all permutations of maternity, blasphemy, and bodily functions.

What’s interesting to me is that as you wander through BlogLand, you pick up hints of similar slumps in others. Many of you are handling it better than I, with your fancy good attitudes and reasonable emotional reactions and logical thinking. OH THE LOGIC. Y’all are killing me. I’m not ready for logic. I’m still wallowing in everything, and not entirely sure how to get from here to there.

Dear April, you kind of suck. GO AWAY.