retrospective

I realized today at work, while writing expiration dates on bottles of syrup, that it has been three months since my birthday. Not that significant, except that I've been marking that as the date when this downward spiral started. Or maybe the last day before the spiral. Whichever.

That day began so well. I felt good when I woke up. Happy, if tentatively so. For the greater part of that day, in fact, I felt like things were going to be ok, because I was starting to make them ok. I was moving on. I was doing well, and would do better.

Less than three weeks later things had deteriorated so far that I decided to move across the country in a last-ditch effort to salvage some part of my life. How the fuck did that happen? Something changed, practically overnight, and I don't even know what it was. Now it's three months later and when I have good days I'm too afraid to say that maybe I'm finally starting that ascent back into health and contentment, because look at how fast everything went to hell the last time I said that.

Three months. That's a quarter of an entire year. A long time. A short time. Long enough for life to change completely. Hell... one night is enough time for that. And once it changes, it doesn't go back. You can't erase things and pretend they never happened. You can't "go back to normal." You can't unlearn what the experience taught you, no matter how much you try to ignore it. You can't go back to believing things you don't believe in anymore.

That was my afternoon. Mostly a reality check, which I'm trying to use as fuel to keep going forward instead of letting it be weight keeping me where I am. I'm not sure what happened three months ago - not sure if there was one catalytic thought that totally changed my mindset and shot me down, or if it was a combination of many things I could readily identify, but won't right here. I'm also not sure what's going to happen tomorrow, except that I'm going to see a doctor and trying not to be too freaked out about it. Also not sure what I'm trying to write about here.

I guess the only thought to close with is that if the next three months bring changes as drastic as the last three, I hope they're improvements. There's no going back to three months ago, or even eight months ago. I think... I might need to redefine happiness, because the old definition doesn't seem attainable anymore. Then I can steer there, to the new version of being happy, and it won't be like anywhere I've been before, but it might be someplace worth being.

I should not blog at night. I don't think that made any sense at all.

Good night.