Jesse: How are you?
Me: Good!
Jesse: ….
Jesse: Huh. You usually say, “I’ve been better” or “OK.”
Me: Well, I’m trying that “Act as if” thing.
The simple truth is, I haven’t felt like myself for going on two years now, and I’m sick of it. If you asked me what the problem was I couldn’t tell you. I don’t think I’m depressed, exactly, but I’ve had specific bouts of panic and anxiety. Other than that, though, it just feels like it’s not me living in my head. Or at least, not the me I’m used to. Everything seems up in the air, topsy-turvy.
For all my problems in the past, I never felt anything other than *stable*. Now instability is the order of every day. It doesn’t help that my father was exactly my age when he became ill with manic depression, an illness he struggled with the rest of his life. But that’s a perfect example of how weird things are – the old me wouldn’t have put any significance on an anniversary like that.
John would always tease me when I would write something elliptical on the weblog about a problem I was having, without spelling out what was wrong. (For example, I could have just left the exchange at the beginning stand as is. Which is what I intended to do, at first.) Well, in this case the problem is I don’t know what the problem is.
A related story
My brother Matt and I were driving to Hinsdale together for some holiday. We were laughing about whenever you entered my grandmother’s house, she would be sitting in the library. You would come in, give her a kiss, and brightly say, “How are you, Didi?” And she would say, without fail in that gravelly voice of hers, “Lousy.”
So my brother bet me $5 that we would walk in the house, ask Didi how she was, and she would reply “Lousy.” I thought, well, I’ll probably lose the bet, but it’ll be funny to see if she’s that predictable. So we walk in, and Matt says, “How are you, Didi?”
“Terrible,” she replied.
Best $5 I ever won.
OK, back to our regularly scheduled programming. I wonder how Amy Yasbeck is doing?
