Angry Drunk Cats

Sorting out my feelings is sort of like herding cats. Wet, angry, possibly drunk cats.

Opening the Pandora's box labelled - appropriately - Relationships, I upend it on the floor. A lumpy mass of tangled loops and knots spills forth. Anyone who has ever had a kids macramé project go awry knows exactly what I'm talking about.

I reach for the strand closest. It unspools and rolls away from me, staying just out of reach. The more I pull, the farther it rolls, like toilet paper disappearing beneath the stall door.

I let it go and tug at another loose end. This one is only slightly less amenable. It unspools a bit before stopping in Texas. March. 2019. Hospice. I drop it like a hot potato. Not ready to deal with that one.

There are plenty here to choose from. No need to jump off the deep end.

Make a choice or someone will make it for you.

I sit back on my heels and think about that for a minute before deciding maybe I'm okay with that. Maybe, for now, I don't want to make any choices. Maybe I am too broken, or too tired, or too lazy or just too whatever to trust myself to make decisions.

That's what depression does. It flattens. It makes everyday activities - choices, decisions - into impossibly large and complicated tasks. At the same time, it unplugs you, letting all the ambition or hope or interest you might have in the outcome of those choices or decisions seep out until you don't have enough energy left to care about the outcome.

For the record, I'm not in that space. But I've been there. And I don't want to go back.

I cast a sidelong glance at the tangled pile of relationship crap on the floor. Somewhere inside I realize it matters. It really matters. There's a reason I need to sort through this mess. But I also have a suspicion it all leads back through Texas and something that important deserves a little bit more than I have to offer right now.

I take an internal poll.

Nope. Not ready to go down that road.

Instead, I'm going to take a detour. I'm going to look at things that piss me off. Err. I mean, triggers. I'm going to examine my triggers.