Hi Love,
I think that I’m doing a lot better than I felt I was two weeks ago, four weeks ago, etc. I feel like I’m in a much stronger position in my immediate future, given the numerous research opportunities I have right now at my fingertips- I really am privileged to be as connected and resourced as I have been, and I’m luckier still to have a pretty decent looking CV as an undergrad. I’m doing well financially now, and I have work expected to be available all the way through to next June. I have. a beautiful wonderful car that will only take me a couple of years to pay off.
So yeah, doing better.
I think that maybe even despite all this theres still something in me screaming “The other shoe is going to drop within the next 45 seconds” and it won’t shut up. I’ve got a lot going on up here and one dimension of that is an extreme distrust of normalcy and stability, because it’s just so unfamiliar to me. I think this feeling will pass, but also I feel like being Tate, it’ll get taken care of soon. To let you in on how the sausage is made, to be Tate means to always be thinking about the open tabs you have; I don’t just mean internet tabs though, I mean everything in this existence. I’m going to be thinking about my car loan every single day until I pay it off, because it’s a tab left open, and so far that’s been true. So now I guess I feel like since I’ve verbalized it, since I’ve acknowledged the little part of me that has no faith in good times, that I will think about it often enough to address it soon and become a stronger person from it in the end.
We’ll see.
I’m not going to talk about them too often or too much, but I have a partner named Jasmine. She inspires me and pulls me through it all. It has been tremendously easier and lighter for me to do all of this, because of her empowering of me. So thanks Jasmine.
The last thing I wanted to say was this: the difference between feeling how heavy your load is and consciously living with a lightened load is totally dependent on the fire inside you. You can’t control so many things, including your own brain- your own brain will betray you at the worst times imaginable, or conjure up demons and angels for you, but there are things you can do to preserve yourself and your realness through it all.
It’s purpose! Meaning-making, transformations, purpose finding, these are the keys to surviving and beating out terrible places that we go to as humans, like MDD. When you’re there, spend all of your energy, as much as it gives you every morning, looking for yourself in the world outside of yourself. You don’t need to fit it in somewhere, but I want you to find somewhere you like it. Can you visualize a place where you belong? A place where you feel autonomous and competent and belonging? Can you find an idea that inspires life in you? If you can, sink your fingernails into it as hard as you possibly can, and hold onto it. It’ll feel like grabbing an inner tube attached to a rope, going down a rapids; it will hurt and exhaust you more to hold on as as you’re pulled in the opposite direction of the coursing, raging waters, but it’ll also save you. It will reward you, and remind you of the value of living, and you’ll be grateful in the weeks, months, or years it takes to get back on land, and to dry off.
Thanks,
Tate
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