Mondays...

It’s Monday… I hate Mondays…

Last night, right before bed, I was getting a quick drink of milk and a sudden thought hit me.

I don’t live at home anymore.

This thought was followed by a tearful wave of homesickness that was both unexpected and entirely unwelcome.

Thus the moodiness began. And my brain, completely without permission, began offering up all sorts of things I could be upset about.

I used to sing in the school choir. I loved it. But I quit because the singing teacher didn’t like me, because I wasn’t popular enough to fit in with everyone else.

I used to act in every school play. I could take a tiny role and manage to steal the show. I had to stop because I had a job, and they wouldn’t let me take off for performances.

I used to be on the swim team. And I could swim damn well. But I was always on the third string with the people who could only doggy-paddle. Because the coach knew no one would protest, because I wasn’t popular enough.

I used to write poetry almost every day. Until I went to the writing center at my high school for some opinions about a poem I’d been laboring over for weeks. The student who read it told me I was mediocre, wasting his time, and tore up the only copy of the poem that I’d spent so long working on. I don’t write poetry anymore.

I could run a 6 minute mile in jr. high. Without really pushing myself. I don’t think I could run that fast now if rabid dogs were chasing me. (This, at least, I plan to remedy this spring. I will get my 6 minute mile back.)

I’ve always wanted to learn how to play an instrument. To make music. But I was never allowed to try as a kid because my brother quit the viola, so of course I would too.

Writing all of this out is NOT making me feel any better. I may not even post this.

For the first 2 years of my high school career I was that person, the one so unpopular that just being seen talking to me was to instantly condemn yourself to isolation for a while. This stopped when it became clear that I really didn’t give a shit. Then I was just mostly ignored.

My high school guidance counselor, who was also my dad’s gym teacher and my brother’s counselor, told me on my first day of high school that I wasn’t welcome in his office, because I was probably just like them.

My junior year of high school I was being molested by a supervisor at work. When I came forward about it he confessed and was fired. Everyone at my work still called me a liar. Even the other girls he was doing it to.

When I found out that I wouldn’t be going away to college this year my boss at Osco told me to my face “I always knew you’d be here for life. This is the best you’ll ever be.”

I spent my 16th birthday in the hospital, because I tried to kill myself.

In spite of my sadistic doctor who thought threatening me with being committed until I was 21 was the way to heal depression, I managed to pull myself together.

I’ve never been to that dark place again.

One of the men I’m an assistant for just set a big bag of Milky-Ways down on my desk and thanked me for all my hard work last week.

The Wolves won Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

I’ve got 12 inches of that damned sweater back done.

Ok, maybe writing this out IS making me feel better.

I’m all out of salad dressing for my lunch.

That just means I’ll have to have McDonald’s instead.

People find me interesting enough to read my blog. Makes me feel special.

I get to have dinner with my Dad tonight.

I have a bedroom full of wool, needles, books, music, movies and the occasional hidden candy bar.

My fish always seem happy to see me.

Drinking water gives me heart burn.

Drinking Pepsi makes it all better.

I’m not feeling so cranky anymore.

I’m better at knitting than I ever was at anything else in my life.

All the things that my brain offered up to make me moody are in the past. I survived them and I’m me because of them.

I like me.

Life is good.

I love Mondays.