take me for a ride in your car, car...

a number of things are leading to this post.

first of all, it was just friday the 13th, full moon. i think that's bringing out the crazy in me. not that it's an under-the-skin thing for me. i'm mixed nuts on a regular basis. it's the only consistent part of me.

perhaps i can lay blame on the non-caffeinated week and the consequent cupof joe i sucked down this morning.

or maybe, like lizzie borden, it's nearing that time of the month and i'm without my favorite axe.

*sigh deeply*

i'm nowhere near where i thought i'd be after three decades of use. (as in,body and/or mind and/or spirit, etc.) i guess as a kid i had this glamorous image of me, jet-setting across the universe in my own private lear, with perfect hair and a slender, toned, athletic bod, fifteen novels written and published, home in minnesota northlands, a cabin in the mountains and another in ireland, no bills, no worries, lots of dogs and cats and a loving, romantic husband, possibly a few offspring.

the image i saw while writing this at work at work (in an office-supplied mirror which says: smile! they can hear it in your voice!) is somewhat different. i'm a bit lumpier than the dream, the hair is frizzier despite cathy's best product and cari's best efforts, i don't write as often as i'd like, and i'm doing math. daily.

middle age is simply not all that it's cracked up to be.

i'm anxious. all the time, i'm anxious. sitting in the dr's yesterday morning, trying to explain the anxiety, i could feel it. in the sci fi show stargate they have these symbiotes that live inside people. for a minute, sitting there, i felt as if i had one, itching inside my head. the frantic scrabble of panic, rising up in my chest, a red balloon in a brown net. it fills me until my whole body is one big nest of worry. my skin feels like it's trying to squirm off my arms, off my chest. behind my eyes there's the scratching of nails on blackboard. and before i know it, it's spilled over and annexed my spinning stomach.

and five minutes later, i'm rolling down the hill again, falling slo-mo into the pit that's always waiting there for me.

i picture my depression as a venus fly trap--hungry, toothy, dark and moist.

i've always seen these things as things that live inside of me, separate from my self. always felt my emotions roll through me like the rain in spain, falling mainly on the plain.

sitting there with my blonde and polished and soft-spoken doctor, i finally i owned my mental box of chocolates. it was like signing your final papers that give you a car, or a house.

this is MY depression. this is MY anxiety. this is MY attention span, my high blood pressure. no one else's.

other people have different flavors of my condition. sometimes they overlap--and sometimes that's a relief. it's stopping to ask for directions and realizing that the seventeen year old behind the gas station counter has no more direction for you than you do, yourself.

go north, young woman. go north until the road slips off the earth and into arctic winter, stinging ice and bright wind. you won't find a goddamned thing up there that will give comfort--polar bears gnaw your arms, wolves run in fear, walrus bellowing.

but you'll have your warm self, the core of you, and what the hell else matters?

***

this work, this job of being my self, of taking ownership of my own body and mind--it's just not as easy as buying a house, or a car.

with my car, i test drove it. i picked out the model and the color and shape. i waited for six hours, signed some papers, and i drove it home.

unfortunately, your body's not a matter of a new paint job or a different seat cover. you own this thing, this thing you never asked to own. you're given this one soul--no instructions on when to wash it, fuel it, vacuum out the insides and replace spigots and gears.

it's taking it apart, piece by piece for some of us. realizing that you cannot replace all the parts and make it a new vehicle, or perhaps that it's not even the same model you always thought it was. "My God, I'm a FORD f-150 truck! I always thought I was a Dodge Viper! Argh!"

you can only limp along sometimes, until you can afford to replace the tires or have the oil drained off. you can wash the rusty parts and keep driving.

i was just driving around in someone else's car--i borrowed it, it was a shiny black Mercedes with a bad alternator, but it wasn't mine to fix. for months now i've been realizing slowly that i'm mine. i'm my parents' child, but i'm my own person. i'm not anyone else's keeper; i'm not kept by anyone. but i'm tied to all these people in ways that i never really inspected all that closely--because this wasn't my life, this was someone else's life, one in which i was simply an observer.

slide over. let me try taking the helm.

***

last year i was making phone calls at work. my intended subject answered the phone.

"hello?"

"oh, hello, this is just kim from adp."

there was a momentary pause, as i'm sure she put me in place. then:

"just kim? you're not "just" kim from adp. you're kim, don't sell yourself short."

can i grasp that? it seems too large to handle. i'm still having a hard time visualizing the idea itself--that i'm a cog in the wheel, but i'm also the whole vehicle. why is it so hard to care about your self?

perhaps because it's hard to look in the mirror. i'm my own worst critic, i know it. i can believe in others, but i don't know how to believe in my self. no one ever sat me down and said, this is how.

it's difficult to not ruminate and say, i've wasted all this time, all this life. hard to not say: i coulda been a contendah.

i still am a contender. i haven't wasted time. i've been sorting through the trunk of my life, tossing out old boots and some hubcaps that ended up there. but it's still my car. i can still get in and go...somewhere.

i just need to remember that i really don't need a map. i'm just here for the ride--but it's mine.

perhaps i'll pimp it out a bit. (;