Stuck in a Rut

I liked college for many reasons, really.  But one thing that I really liked about it was that you got to live with a bunch of other females of the same age and situation.  I went to a Catholic college, so the dorms were co-ed, but the floors were not.  So for each of my first two years, I lived with hundreds of other women.

One of the nice things about this is that we got to see how other people lived.  We learned how much other people study and how they organize their stuff and how they spend their days.  There was diversity and variety, and in that, there was a lot to learn.  And there was a lot to validate our choices.

Have you ever heard of that show Sister Wives?  It’s a reality show about a polygamist family.  There are four wives, one husband, and whole bunch of kids.  I try not to watch the show because a) it’s not very interesting, and b) polygamy isn’t really my cup of tea.  I actually find the whole show a bit depressing because every character on the show seems to have been run through some kind of numbing machine, and I find that demoralizing.

BUT, one thing that I can’t help but consider as I occasionally watch the show is that it would be nice to see how other women do it.  I think it would be nice to live in that close of a community with other people.  It would be nice to really see how other people do it.  To understand their inner workings.  To pit my standards against theirs and see how it all adds up.

Because there are two things I really struggle with even in the best of times, and those are inertia and standards.  Arguably two very unrelated things.

On the one hand, I have absolutely no idea what kind of standards I should have for myself.  How clean is clean enough?  Where does it become an obsession?  Where does it become a lapse or a failure?  How structured should our time be?  When do I know if I’m giving enough of myself, or too little, or too much?

And perhaps because of all of that uncertainty, I find myself seriously lacking inertia.

I’ve mentioned over the last month that I’ve been working on acceptance.  On learning to accept when I feel sad or overwhelmed or angry or frustrated.  I’m trying to learn to sit with it and learn from it rather than manically trying to punch it into the ground.  And with this inertia, it’s one area I really struggle with.

After all, the inertia obviously comes as a symptom of the anxiety and the depression.  Day after day after day, I beat myself up for the depression and the effects it has on my life.  Here, I think, is a chance to just accept it.  Accept that for now I have no motivation.

But then on the other hand, there’s the really valid argument that inertia leads to inertia, and if I could just find it within myself to do something I very well may notice that the inertia starts to drift away.  But so far, that’s not a battle I’ve been winning as of late.

And so here I sit.  Writing it out.  Considering whether or not I should actually hit the “publish” button.  After all, this isn’t really the type of depression post people usually make.  It’s not often, you read the nitty-gritty of the day to day battle with dysthymic feelings.

We people like to think that we control our behavior.  That if we know that doing the dishes will make us feel better that we will go and do the dishes.  It’s logical.  It makes sense.  But sometimes, the signals get broken and things aren’t quite that simple.  Sometimes we act in ways that are counterproductive.  And perhaps that’s what we all have in common, mood disordered or not.

Sometimes our greatest enemies aren’t out there in the world.  Sometimes they are inside.  And perhaps sometimes that’s why they are so hard to defeat.

And sometimes it would be nice to be able to see the inner workings of other people’s homes.  I don’t have a job.  I don’t have that outward validation.  I can’t see how other people spend their days.

And I know the standards I create need to be my own.  But sometimes just a little glimpse would be nice.  You know?