A day in my head

Most days:

I wake up after a fitful night of sleep filled with nightmares about my ex just treating me horribly and just acting totally different from the woman I loved for 20+ years. My body, especially my bum knees, just ache from the tossing and turning and I have to sit on the edge of the bed for 5 minutes attempting to “work out the kinks”. I never do and I limp to the bathroom hoping that today isn’t the day where they just give out and I am stuck on the floor.

Most mornings I attempt to try to eat breakfast. I look at the mess from yesterday and tell myself “later”. I take my pill “cocktail” which just doesn’t seem to help anymore. Get dressed, hate how I look, wish I could buy new clothes, know that I can’t, and hate where I am in my life. I think back to when I would help my sons get ready for school, make a big breakfast, and have the loving feeling of a family around me like a bulletproof shield. I spend the next few minutes fighting the tears, again.

I walk to my truck and get accosted, as I do every day, by my neighbor’s dogs. One day they will get through the screen. When I get to my truck, I glance over at the daycare across the way and see the parents dropping their children off and the loss hits me hard. I immediately think about how I had all of that ripped from me and given to another man. Almost everything that made me happy and complete is gone and my relationships have all been irreparably changed and every day I struggle with why…

The drive to work and home has become one of the only constants in my life now and even that has been recently messed with. The county has decided to “fix” the one road with tar and stone and they have done the most half-assed job of it. My truck now has tar spots all over the bottom of the doors and wheel wells and at least 4 new chips in my windshield from passing vehicles.

I arrive at work knowing that it is my only escape from it all and also yet another cause of depression for me. My 2 co-workers, who have their lives together, talk of trips and activities I probably will never have. Their families stop by occasionally. They keep all the good parts of this job to themselves and saddle me with the bad. I deal with difficult customers, paperwork mistakes, and messed-up DMV paperwork even though it’s someone else’s job as an “office manager”.  During the day I will see a couple or a family come in to browse or buy and it pulls my mind right back to all I lost.

I come home to the lonely apartment, once again getting aggressively barked at or occasionally “lunged” at when the dog is tied outside. My apartment is constantly “stale” and blah. There are always dishes to be done and no matter how I move things, it just feels constricting and prison-like. I sit and listen to the kids and families in the complex play and laugh and yes, I once again think and miss my own. I cry every day. I push myself to “clean up” and no matter what, it never seems to feel clean.

I quickly lose interest and hope. I take the “nighttime” pills and the pill my psychiatrist says will help me sleep and watch shitty YouTube videos until my mind surrenders, or so I think. I go to bed and attempt to quiet my brain with mood music or soundscapes, but it doesn’t help. I eventually must fall asleep because I am again in a dream with my love who once again has become the nastiest person I have ever met.