The Final Countdown

Less than a week.   Four more days.  Then, I am leaving on a jet plane, and I don’t know when I’ll be back again.  Oh, wait.  Yes, I do.

I want to die.  I want to slit my wrists so I don’t have to go.  I want to crash my car into an embankment and have to spend a year in traction in the hospital.

I am freaking out over my mom’s magnum opus.  I worked my nonexistent ass off on it today (it’s actually concave now), and I am almost finish, but I am a fucking idiot for letting it go until now.  I feel as if I’ve done a shitty job on it, and I know it’s in part because of how pissed off I am at my mother right now.

I have to clean so that Natasha doesn’t have to wear a gas mask when she comes over to feed the boys.  I have to do laundry.  I have to pack.  I have to, I have to, I have to….

Breathe.  I have to breathe.  I can’t breathe.  I feel as if I’m gasping for breath.  I have the urge to scream until I can’t scream any more.

I talked to my bro today about the book, and I blew up at him because he was trying to make it harder for me (not on purpose).  He’s a techie, so it’s his job to point out techie things, but not when I have fucking run the clock out on the project.  Plus, he tends to get snippy when he talks about techie stuff because he’s so fucking brilliant in that area, and I already feel stupid enough without him talking down to me.

He asked me if I was ready for Taiwan.  Ready for Taiwan?  Ready for Taiwan?  Fuck no, I’m not ready for Taiwan.  I am dreading it and hating it and wishing I could…

But it’s coming.  Four days.  Breathe.

All my emotions are roiling right now.  They are percolating inside of me, and my chest is tight.

I’m panicking.  My mind is running around in circles as if it’s on a hamster wheel.

The demons are loving this.  They are feasting on the fear and the panic and the inchoate terror.  They are fanning the flames, so to speak, whispering all the dreadful things that will happen to me when I’m there.

What would be the worst thing to happen?  My therapist often asks me this question.  My answer usually is, “I don’t know.”  What I fear will happen is that I will literally fall apart or explode.  I know it’s not reasonable, but little about me is reasonable right now.

My therapist made an astute point yesterday when I was talking about how crazy I was feeling because I couldn’t keep my emotions under control.  She said, “When you are used to containing your emotions, even letting them out a little feels exactly the same as letting them all out.  Of course you’re going to feel crazy.”  Then she added, “You’re going to have to hang out in crazy for awhile.”

No.  That was my immediate reaction.  I hate all this feeling that I am having.  I can remember the numb which protected me from all this shit.  And no, I am not going to say I liked the numb or that it was a good thing.  What I will say, though, is that I desperately want it back again.

I know it wasn’t good for me, but all these emotions running through me are wearing me the fuck down.  The closer I get to D-Day, the less I’m able to function–at least internally.  Since I have a lifetime of training in keeping my outer shell together, that’s still intact.  Tattered around the edges, but still mostly in one piece.

Another thing my therapist said to me was to try to find joy in the little things–such as walking around the airport with my niece.  Or reading the poorly-translated Chinese-to-English signs.  Or checking out the hotties (my contribution, not hers).  This is sound advice.  She also gave me a mantra to replace, “STFU or I’ll punch you in the face”– “I am not yours.”   In other words, I am not an extension of my father, and I am not the mini-me of my mother.  I am me, for better and for worse (mostly, for worse).

In addition, both Choolie and Kel have given me talismans to take with me on the trip.  I will unlock the international capacity on my cell tomorrow.  I will have the internet.

And still.  I feel as if it’s the fucking end of the world.

WTF is wrong with me?  It’s a freaking trip.  Most people would be ecstatic…ok.  Not going down that path again.  It just makes me incredibly sad that everyone else is so looking forward to this trip, and I would rather gnaw off my own hind leg, er, put myself in traction than go.  I am so fucking tired, and yet, I don’t want to go to bed because it means that I am that much closer to leaving on the trip.

The guilt is crushing me.  I hate myself right now.  I feel like a complete and utter worthless piece of shit.  I fucked up my mom’s project.  I can barely function.  I feel like I’m failing everybody as well as myself.

Why the fuck am I bothering?  Why did I try so hard to make progress when I am just back in the darkness again?  It seems as if it was all for naught.  If the progress I made can be wiped out so easily, then I might as well not even fucking try.

I can’t do this.  For the first time in a long time, I want to die.  I don’t see a way out of this hellhole in which I have put myself.

There is no light at the end of the tunnel.

I am hanging on by a thread.  I feel as if my skin is being flayed from my body, bit by bit, until there is nothing left of me but bones (I wish!).  I feel as if it will only take one little nudge to push me off the cliff and into the abyss.

The sad part is that I would welcome it right now.  Oblivion.  Being crushed into oblivion.  Oblivion = peace.  Oblivion means I don’t have to think any more.  Oblivion means that I don’t have to feel all this fucking turmoil any longer.  Oblivion means that I can finally rest.

I feel like an ungrateful bitch because I have such a network of support.  I have many people rooting for me to make it.  I have friends who believe in me–more than I believe in myself.  I have friends who love me.    I joke around with various people all day long, and I know they enjoy my company.

I know all this.  I really do.  And still, I just want it all to stop.  I just want to stop.

Every time I think I reach the nadir, I find another ring of hell.  Just when I think I can’t sink any lower, I do.

I know life is not meant to be easy, but does it really have to be this hard?  I have to fight just to get up every morning/afternoon.  I feel like I’m in constant crisis, and my system is about to short-circuit.

As I sit here typing this, my eyes are filled with tears.  It all feels so fucking futile.  I feel like it’s time to let go of the thread.