The mental part of the current struggle... (1 of 3)

Well, I think while I was sleeping my body was re-reading old blog posts or something and came upon this one that revealed my new motto for the year being "if you don't care, I don't care."  I think it was tired of my mental check out since our return from vacation and said "well, obviously she likes feeling like utter shit mentally and physically so I'll just get comfy."

Let me explain.

When we were on vacation, everything went wrong.  Yes, it was technically a vacation but it was a working vacation for us.  We have Hawaii related businesses and we bought some expensive equipment we needed and waited for it to arrive.  The weird thing is, from the time we booked the vacation, we weren't excited about it.  I booked everything last 4th of July from plane tickets to homes and when it was done the Mr half excited said "Hawaii is booked!"  I gave a half smile and said "yay?"  We both laughed because we acknowledged we just weren't quite as excited.  After you've been to a place 13 times, you know what to expect so we figured it was just the familiarity of it all or something.  I could not get the motivation to plan that trip at all.  I needed to be very precise with our filming schedule because we needed to maximize our time in each quadrant of the islands.  I finally did finish planning it...the day before we left.  When we got there, it was cloudy but that's island life...they'd been in a drought, rainy season was over so we should be fine.  We got up to Haleakala at 4:30am our first day there in freezing temps.  (We dressed for it but it still wasn't enough and I just wasn't packing our winter coats as well.)  It was crowded and it was a crappy time to realize the tripod the Mr had so carefully researched was a steaming pile of dung.  The pan screw would not tighten so a smooth transition wasn't in the cards... just a slight bump would send it whipping to the other side.  We became hyper aware of it and with an Aussie lady doing everything she could to stand right in our shot and a Brit using me as a tripod, I don't know how someone didn't go over the rail with my boiling rage.  But we got it, it was fine and we made our way other places.  It was a decent day in the morning but as mid morning approached, clouds rolled in and blue skies were nowhere to be found.

The next day was the Hana Highway and this is a drive you really just want to do once given there are over 600 turns on it.  Not a typo.  It was pure rain.  Now we've done the highway many times and we always expect drizzle but no, this was pure, sometimes driving, rain.  That makes for pretty pictures.  By the time we were halfway through, we felt like we were wasting our time and a check of the radar showed there was no letting up the rest of our time on the island.  We were both pissed at the weather, pissed at the tripod and the general circumstances and ended up being assholes to each other on our 20th anniversary that day.  When someone asks me how I celebrated my 20th anniversary, I immediately think of me crying on a black sand beach alone.  So yeah...can't get that back.  That night we did manage to have a nice dinner and after, the Mr bought me some earrings I'd been eyeing and they were literally a mortgage payment.  I didn't bat an eye because I thought "screw you, I deserve these after our anniversary being ruined."  Now in my right mind, there was no way in hell I'd have said yes.  My leveler head prevailed a few days later and back they went.  There was just too much bad juju attached to them.  Every time I saw them, while they were beautiful, I was reminded of that awful day.

There were other things but basically the weather pattern was the same for 70% of the trip.  It got better when on the Big Island, the Mr fell into the salt water with our expensive camera.  Yeah...dead.  (The camera, not the Mr...though I'll admit, not so nice thoughts ran through my mind the rest of the trip.  That trip was the only reason we bought that thing.)  All I can say is thank God I scheduled it.  So I got to spend the next day dealing with idiots at the insurance company to which I was openly mocking one of them while he was still on the phone.  I'm asking you a question to see if accidental water damage is covered and your answer is start a claim and find out???  Asshat.  Then the only working camera we had got screwed up as well mechanically so zooming while recording was no longer possible.  Did I tell you it also had either dust or a scratch on the inside?  You can imagine my delight when 5 days into Maui, upon watching footage we saw BOTH cameras had a crapload of dust and rain spots on there so everything we filmed over those days was useless and we had to re-film what we could.  That was the beginning of my mental breakdown.  So our luck pretty much went that way the rest of the trip until our flight (last one out of the day) was cancelled.  We picked the wrong line for hotel vouchers and couldn't even enjoy the extra day and a half we had on Kauai because we not only weren't getting the first class we paid for but they weren't seating us together.  We were now split between two airlines instead of one and pretty much all day was spent dealing with that AND a personal trip to the airport to get the last of it sorted out.  (Even then it wasn't all the way.)

So we pretty much wasted thousands of dollars on a trip from Hell, didn't get the shots we wanted in our usually decent weather and a milestone anniversary was flushed down the toilet.  (Let's not forget the delightful email waiting for me of ....grandma needs hospice, research that, will ya?)

I slipped into a drowning depression from that email until now.  It got so bad a few days after returning that I honestly didn't care if I woke up.  Yep, I'm just going to admit it.  I didn't necessarily want to kill myself per say but I was indifferent to life in a way that said if I don't wake up tomorrow, who f**king cares?  Please don't recommend meds.  Don't freak out.  I'm dealing with it.  We have both gone through depressive episodes before and we were both in the trenches the first few days.  The Mr even said "look, I'm depressed too so I can't help you right now."  I began keeping my thoughts about the vacation and the situation with dealing with the airlines (which we're still doing by the way) to myself.  A few days later, my attitude and inability to handle just life in general apparently snapped him out of his and asked what he could do to help.  Having suffered from depression before, he knows there is nothing anyone can do to help.  You just either wait it out for as long as you're comfortable or you go next level.

I am not in the "indifferent to life" stage anymore which is a relief but I'm still mentally struggling to just not say screw it and share a blood supply with the couch.  I did make it a priority to get the patio together and somehow that helps to a degree.  I went from saying "I'm not doing flowers/herbs this year.  Why bother, it gets used for a month then we stop going out there" to grabbing a broom and scrubbing it down so we have an outdoor space we can enjoy as long as the neighbors or their demon dogs aren't infringing.  (They add a whole other stress to my life as I try to work from home.  Too bad they don't make ultrasonic devices that actually work.)

I feel like I'm not adulting very well.  The world has changed in ways that are just overwhelming to me and no I'm not talking about (insert latest horrible thing taking up news coverage) but just how people are to each other in general.  The Big Island was the highlight of the trip because people still let people in when there's traffic and you actually get a wave or two for your kindness.  People still smile at you there.  I can count on ONE HAND how many people texted while driving there and the occasional kid walking home from school.  The only people that were annoying were tourists who brought their mainland attitudes and driving styles.  Then coming back here it was people invading your space, not staying in their lanes, pushing to be first behind a 3000 lb weapon they were driving and right back to seeing the worst in parenting, or lack thereof.  I know I need to let these things roll but I can't.  It all affects me because I can't just enjoy some damn time somewhere without seeing people being rude and inconsiderate to each other.  We all have to share the planet, can't we not be idiots and maybe be empathetic and not apathetic?  But that's a whole other thing.  It needed to be mentioned though because it contributes to my current mental state.

Every person deals with their depression differently and it can last a few days, weeks or months depending on who you are and your coping mechanisms.  I know I will come out the other side at some point.  I know it's probably not coming along as quickly as the Mr would like either because my attitude was apparently not pleasing to him the other night before letting out a huge sigh after I was going to a lot of effort for dinner and I almost sent corn and pork chops flying over the fence.  Luckily for him once he saw how much effort I put into it, he thanked me several times for what I did and it calmed the beast.

But honestly, there is almost nothing worse than being in desperate need for a vacation and having almost an entire month of vacation flushed and come back to more crap to deal with.  We're going to do a "make up" vacation of sorts in October where we essentially do not a whole lot.  We didn't get much downtime at all in Hawaii and we relished what time we did have.  It's been either overwhelming or full throttle since our return so having a week to decompress isn't a wish, it's mandatory.

I did say there is ALMOST nothing worse in the last paragraph, what was worse was the physical toll.   Come back tomorrow to hear about the awesome way we failed ourselves on our vacation and upon our return.

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