Birthday. Rah rah rah.

I’ve spent three-quarters of the evening crying for no apparent reason. I cried when I got home, before dinner, after dinner and after dessert. I am puffy and swollen and gross.

There’s no reason for it and I’m even angrier about that. Restatement: there’s no clear reason for it, other than a depressive state.

LJ tried to get me to snap out of it via IM, but I am just too pig-headed and stubborn to respond to that in any way. He was insistent that the glass is half-full and that things are going to get better for me; I wish I could believe that wholeheartedly and not just to placate my friends who mean well. But I don’t. I even told him that he knows me - I’ve never seen the glass as half-full. I feel like I’m perpetually running on empty.

I can’t fault him or any of my other friends or family for trying to get through. I know that I’m just impossible. More reasons I will end up alone… unless Conservative ethics take over the entire nation and they institute a marital draft, I know how I’m ending up.

Earlier today, I got a lovely email from my friend Elizabeth wishing me a happy birthday and telling me that she and my other friends are happy to celebrate it since they have me in their lives; this morning, I choked up reading it. I think I still would. However, I almost feel like a lot of my friends haven’t known me long enough or well enough to know that this isn’t just a stage. This is me. And maybe, with time, people learn that and learn to stay far, far away.

I wish there was some mystical, magical switch that I could access in a dream or something that would turn things around - so I’d start believing that things will be OK and that everything I should have accomplished last year or two years ago or three years ago will come to pass sooner rather than later. As it stands, I don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. At all.

I’m in a bad way and a bad place right now. I can get through the days well enough because I have work to distract me in pleasant way and allow me to feel competent and smart and funny and “good.” I don’t concentrate on my looks or my weight or my loneliness there. But that’s a surface distraction; it’s got great value and merit, don’t get me wrong. It has helped me to feel more value and self-esteem than I have in a long, long time. I can’t lose myself in it, though. That’s not healthy.

Finding the balance is difficult.

In her email, Elizabeth asked me for my goal for this 28th year of my life - “make it a good one.” I was really stumped when I thought about it. I don’t have goals in the way she was intending it, I think. I focus on things like “moving out”, “getting a car”, “getting out of debt”, etc. I looked around for inspiration and my eyes settled on my calendar at my desk which had a quote from Lao-Tzu… “Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear?”

I wrote her back that I was going to try to be patient and let the mud settle and the water run clear.

We’ll see. I’m waiting for laundry because I have to pack up enough clothing for Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, as well as a book or two, and some DVDs to keep me occupied. I won’t worry about styling my hair - and I won’t worry about makeup. I don’t have to impress the doggie I’m sitting for.

It’s 10:30. This is going to be a late night. Let’s see how it all goes. I’ll be able to write tomorrow, so I can fill in the blanks then.