It's All Catching Up to Me

For the last week or so, I've been struggling with this lingering sadness. I'm going to call it sadness right now because I don't quite think I've crossed over into the depression zone. Depression, for me, is not having the energy to do anything. It feels like the days are monotonous, and I usually get to a point where I don't see the purpose in anything. Granted, I'm still struggling with purpose, but it's more than that: I feel this deep sadness within me, like at any given moment my heart might rip open or the heaviness of it all might suck me into a scary vortex.

The hardest part of the sadness is I'm not quite sure what the root is. I can think of things that make me sad. I've been making lists in my head for days:

• Multiple rainy days in a row

• Finishing Jane the Virgin (yes, this is a thing that makes me sad)

• Not getting into grad school (guess I should admit that one now)

• Being stuck in quarantine. . .still

It all hurts. It all makes me sad, and I even find myself still mourning over the loss of my grandfather and my sister's bunny. I also find myself getting sad when I think about my grandma, the state she's in with her dementia, and how we can't see her due to COVID-19. As I write this, I think I finally see that maybe there doesn't have to be a root to all of it--maybe it's possible for sadness to bubble up long enough before everything pops inside you, and if I'm being honest, I don't think I've quite popped. I feel like a break down is building up inside me, but I've yet to explode.

I should mention I feel like I may be in a crying deficit. Yes, I know that sounds dumb, but I'm a crier. I cry at happy things and sad things and silly things. I cry at all the things, really. Hell, before therapy, I used to cry so much that it felt as common as breathing. Now, I barely seem to cry. I tear up here and there, but I have many days where I feel like I need to cry and can't. It's one of the worst feelings in my opinion. It's like there's so much pain and sadness inside that needs to be released into tears, but I can't seem to express any of it the way I want. When I think about crying, it feels like I'm trying to force it and then I end up feeling ridiculous.

On top of it all, I've finally reached the point where I'm over quarantine. Honestly, I've handled it well for the most part. I've enjoyed being in the comfort of my own home and getting to spend more time with Jake and the girls, but at this point, I also really miss life before quarantine. I miss human connection, I miss game nights with friends, I miss concerts, I miss going out to brunch, I miss hugging people, I miss going to a park without the need to social distance or wear a mask, I miss wearing cute clothes for a purpose. I just miss so much right now that I haven't necessarily allowed myself to miss in the last year. I've even been missing the beach, which people who truly know me, know I'm not a big beach person. But to travel, explore a new culture, or see some place I haven't seen in the last 12 months, would be a dream right now. My therapist said at out last session that it sounded like there was a void inside me. At the time, I wasn't sure what it was but now I think it might be the lack of human connection and experience during this pandemic. I'm a people person, I love to travel, and I enjoy learning about people and cultures different from me. I've been missing that excessively, and it hadn't really hit me until recently.

I'm aware that life will never be the same as it was before the pandemic--too much has happened. And in many ways, I find that to be a good thing. I think the world needed to slow down and reflect, but I'd be lying if I said I don't hope for some sense of normalcy to come back sooner rather than later.