Today I'm Losing

Sometimes I want to write, but I just can't find the words. Sometimes it's too much to even think about it. Sometimes it's too much to think about much of anything.

Today, I want to go back to bed. I almost always wake up like this, like I just want to stay in bed forever. Sometimes, I do. Not forever, but for the morning, once for the day. But, usually, if I get up and put on clothes, get the kids out the door and get tires on the road, I start to feel okay about things.

Mostly, by the time I get to work, I'm okay with the day. With the idea of being awake and facing reality. Sometimes, days like today, not so much.

Today, I don't want to be here. I want to be in my room, cool and dark, reading my book and watching TV and playing Candy Crush and pretending that nothing exists outside my flimsy hollow-core door.

Today, I want to give up. To throw my hands in the air and declare a time out for everyone.

I'm not sad. I'm not unhappy or lonely or mad or bereft. I don't really feel much of anything.

Which means that today I am losing.

I never say, "I suffer from depression." I always say, "I fight with depression," or when it's bad, "I struggle with depression." Because to me, suffering admits defeat. I am fighting a war, here.

A war that will probably never be all the way won. A war that can be lost or survived, but never won. And maybe that's as it should be. Maybe that's as war always is.

Today, I'm losing. That numbness that seizes me and tells me that in 36 minutes I can leave work. In about an hour, I can be headed home. I can make frozen chicken fingers, green beans and fruit salad for supper. I can do the dishes and a couple of loads of laundry and make the kids take their showers. I can not do anything amazing at all and in four short hours I can have everyone tucked in and then I can go hide in my calm, cool room and surrender for the night... That tells me I'm losing.

Numbness, not sadness is the signal that I'm losing today's battle. Numbness and emptiness is what losing looks like.

And I tell myself that it's okay. You don't win 'em all. The mightiest army in history still lost battles. Tomorrow is another day in the trenches. Tomorrow, I will feel different than today, because no two days are exactly the same. Tomorrow, will be better. Or it'll be worse, maybe, but it will be different.

This is my Scarlet O'Hara, "As God as my witness, Fiddle-de-dee, tomorrow is another day."

But know this, I am not responsible for my actions toward the next person who asks me if I have "a case of the Mondays." There will be blood.