And so came Yesterday. Yesterday shall heretofore be known among these parts as the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.
I’ve had a few pretty awful days in my life, but none, in recent memory, as bad as yesterday was. Now you’re thinking “Really? What about when your father had the aneurysm? What about when you had to have your dog put to sleep?What about when (insert relative here) died?” and I can say this: Those were the worst things that ever happened in my life, but none of these events made their respective days as bad as yesterday was, as far as I can remember. I grieved, on those days, but I knew that one day I’d be able to be happy again. Yesterday? Nope. No way could I see any light at the end of what seemed to be a long, dark, smelly, never-ending tunnel.
Let’s start at the beginning, with yesterday morning. I woke up, just like any other day. I did all my normal any other day things. Nobody died. There were no disasters in the world for me to be sad about. And yet, there I was, with the invisible-to-everyone-but-me Black Cloud of Despair settled firmly over my head.

And then along they came, right on schedule: my lifelong buddies, the Self-Doubts. Parading through my mind. They were all there, too: You’re No Good., Hey Louise! People Only Pretend To Like You!, You Are Stupid!, Brush Your Teeth? Why? You Suck, Why Bother Brushing Your Teeth?, You’re Poor! Obviously God Hates You!, Oh Sweetie You Might Think You Have Friends But Really How Can You Have Friends Because You’re Such An Awful Person?, You Are Always Disappointing Everyone Around You., You’re Such A Fake., Why Can’t You Get Off Your Ass And DO Something Instead Of Being Such A Loser All The Time? Probably Because You Are Ugly And Lazy And Horrible, And Also A Huge Whore., and the oldest of them all, It’s Your Fault. It’s All Your Fault. Everything Is Your Fault And WHY AREN’T YOU FIXING IT?.

Those guys come to visit fairly regularly, but it’s been a long time since I’ve had a party and they’ve ALL showed up. Usually it’s just one or two of them at a time. I give them some ice cream, go outside with them and take a walk, watch a funny movie with them, and they say thanks for the visit and head back to wherever they came from. But when they get all together? Well, these guys, they like to party. And they’re not leaving until they’re Good And Ready, Thank You.

So they settled in yesterday. Yes, I had taken my meds. That doesn’t mean that my life is sunny and bright every day, I guess. Anyway, they hung around all day, until the night. Nothing I could do (and I have a l-o-n-g list of coping mechanisms, not all of which are particularly healthy for a person) was enough to convince them to leave. I cried a lot, all the while thinking that I shouldn’t cry because my feeling bad was an inconvenience to other people. I screamed at my mother– my poor, poor maman!– when she innocently asked me why I just couldn’t shake it off and be happy that DIDN’T SHE THINK THAT IF I COULD SHAKE IT OFF I WOULD HAVE BY NOW GODDAMN IT IT’S NOT LIKE I’M ENJOYING THIS FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST! (don’t worry, I apologized later and dutifully took my lecture on the subject of Taking Our Lord’s Name In Vain Is SO Wrong Young Lady, Now Make Sure You Say Your Rosary). I poked around with sharp objects. I tried to drown everything with french fries and five-month-old ice cream from the back of the freezer. The ice cream was actually still pretty good, by the way, once you dug down through the permafrost top layer of freezer-burn crystals.

Finally, when Rob was home from work, he held me in his arms while I cried until I was asleep. Boy did I cry hard. I am so blessed to have a wonderful future husband who loves me and takes care of me and is so supportive and so giving and so very, very sexy. Plus he knows all the words to the Armadillo Song. I know that me being this way forces him to have to take care of me and who’s going to take care of him? and that makes me feel guilty– but everytime I express that to him he tells me that I do take care of him, just by being here in his life, because I’m a bean head and all his life, he’d been waiting for a bean head to come along and lo and behold, here I am.

I also know that there are people out there who have far worse pain than I do. People who have lost loved ones, lost limbs, lost… everything. I have it easy, compared to 92% of the world. I know it. But my pain, it’s real too. For me, sometimes, it’s unbearable. Luckily I’m learning better ways to deal with it that do work most of the time. Luckily I have a good drug plan and a doctor who is trying to help me, and a combination of meds (no, not vitamins Tom Cruise, you incredibly self-important pompous crapweasel) that for the most part works for me.

And today? Today, I feel great. There’s been no crying or gnashing of teeth. There HAS, however, been brushing of teeth.
And singing. And bathing. And watching of Home Movies.

So yeah. Yesterday’s over, today’s here. Tomorrow’ coming.

Yay!