The melancholy of yesterday followed me into today...as did some dizziness. I'm fairly certain that I have consumed my weight in water to prevent any dehydration, and have spent most of the day sitting on my ass. I also had to call into work once more, which makes four times in three weeks. Needless to say I am not feeling like a winner.
I don't know many ways of coping with depression. Self-motivating is obviously hard when you don't consider moving being worth any time or energy and could quite frankly care less if you were to melt into the furniture and cease to exist. I know that I can fake it a bit; my humor and wit can sneak out in little cracks if I exert a large amount of force, but the feeling of wanting to melt into my surroundings remains the same. I often fall short of lifting the shadows on my own.
When I was a teenager I used to fantasize that someone would come and make it possible for me to see nothing but sunshine and roses all the time. I imagined that my life would be like a country song that was on the radio then; a man would fall in love with me and his love would transform me into the woman I was meant to be, the end result being that everyone would see the beautiful creature hidden beneath my morose and garish exterior.
That was roughly 12 years ago, and I now see my fantasy for the unreachable dream it is. I learned from my one romantic relationship that it is not possible for anyone to transform me, and I learned from my own spiritual searching that if I was to be in any way transformed it would be through the love and care of Christ. You would think that this knowledge would completely dispel the need to spend minutes or hours dreaming of my very own avenger confessing his love and thereby making everything better, but it hasn't. That damn dream still comes quite frequently in various forms.
As far as romantic love is concerned, I fear that it will be something very hard for me to attain. The first and foremost reason for this is due to the fact that I have met very few people who are willing to take that treacherous first step in giving an attraction to me a chance. This thought usually occurs when I think of my fears of being "too much" of something, and therefore undesirable; on very bad days I blame it solely on my weight. When considering my personality, which I think is pretty amazing most days, I wonder if there is anyone in my life who shares my views on what romantic love entails or looks like.
I don't believe in any sort of love at first sight, but I know that lust and simple animal attraction can happen instantaneously. I believe that love is something that sort of grows and comes on in time. It surpasses first glances and takes root in things shared between two souls. When I think of men I have been attracted to, it was never quickly; words can make or break how my initial judgement of a person is used. I believe the average length of time for me to form an attachment to a man is three conversations, and at least two of them must carry some weight. This may be why I think that committment comes from the beginning, because you have to commit to even giving attraction, let alone love, a chance. There is an impulsive component to it in the fact that once the decision is made, something must happen. Stagnation is a poor bedfellow. Once attraction is given a chance to occur, it will either be nurtured by both parties to grow and thrive into something more, or will quickly blossom, wilt, and die. Attraction, and afterwards love, is a choice that involves a sort of marriage of emotion and reason. It isn't something that will merely take care of itself, but needs to be given care.
I've heard it said that men are visually stimulated when it comes to attraction (which I see used as a disgusting excuse in this day and age of sexual attraction being the main ingredient to dating, love, mariage, and so forth), so perhaps my views will only be shared by women. If this is the case, it saddens me and adds to my depression; I cannot believe it is so.
Once again, I find myself holding to hope. Perhaps this is the motivator that keeps me from becoming part of a couch, table, or chair. In every situation, even if I'm sprawled out while bemoaning that I can't see an end to the struggle, I know inside that there is hope.
Before I go, you should know that the ramble on relationships was due to a talk with the PLP today about rules and regulations we would have to draw up for any future dating partners about our relationship, so as to prevent any confusion. I wish I had a transcript of the entire conversation. It was a bright point of an otherwise cloudy minded day. Oh, and don't try to read "Wuthering Heights" when you're already depressed, because all the main characters in that book are crazy stupid.
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