Much Worse Things...

This morning I awoke and rose...
I trudged upstairs to make coffee, turn on the computer, get breakfast, wash my face and brush my teeth...The usual morning routine. I ate breakfast (toast, cheese, apple, coffee) and then sat at the computer. I checked the email (nothing important) and comments (kind, funny, thoughtful), the weather (brilliantly sunny) and Google Reader (728 unread!!). I finished my coffee. My father called to see if I'd like to borrow his car for the day while he worked a shift for someone who is ill...
"No. Thanks but I feel like being alone today."
What I didn't say was I was still in my pajamas, my bed was left unmade and I had every intention of heading back to the warm and mindless sleep I had just left. I am not accustomed to feeling this way anymore...It makes it 100x worse because the fear of depression is almost as bad as depression itself. Almost enough to make me...Well, I wouldn't go that far. Let me just say that I will not go back there.
So I headed back to bed. I can do that. I have no obligations to anyone but myself. I don't have to make excuses to anyone. Miss Drooke happily follows me to the open sheets. She crawls in under the blankets and stretches so that her little body has contact with every inch of mine that is possible. She quickly settles into purring. Her little razor claws poking into my armpit every minute or so...
I lie there, staring at the ceiling. My thoughts dark, deep and changeable as the Atlantic. I brood on having to get through "this" once again...I feel dead and heavy and ungrateful. I feel guilty. Some people don't have the privilege of staying in bed all day; some people have to stay in bed all day everyday...I have so much. So much to do...So much to offer...So much to learn, and see, and photograph, and feel...And yet...I am alone. To do all things, alone...
And then I remember...
I have felt this way, and worse, when I wasn't alone. I remembered a staff Christmas Party I went to years ago. I was dressed to kill. I looked really good even to my own brutal eye. I went alone. The rest of the staff was coupled. Everyone inquired on my "date". I guess they figured it to be very sad that I couldn't even get a friend to go with me...I sat next to the woman (and her handsome husband) I liked and admired the most...Her husband was an ass. He flirted, he drank, he was crass, he made my cheeks burn with embarrassment more than once...I looked into the woman's eyes as I said to the table..."There are much worse things than coming alone." She lifted her glass and glared at the imbecile sitting next her. "Cheers to that!" and swallowed the glass' entire contents. For the rest of the night she and I laughed and talked. The husband sulked...In the dark of my bedroom I smiled. I lifted the covers..."Drooke want treats?" She was up the stairs faster than I could swing my legs over the edge.
I made the bed.

♥