The irritating thing about dealing with chronic brain chemistry issues like depression and anxiety is I get to play this super-fun guessing game with myself every time I'm feeling under the weather emotionally. What am I feeling, exactly, and where is it coming from? Is it just a chemical or hormonal thing, or is it something that has a cause? If it does have a cause, is it something I can fix, or do I just need to wait for it to pass? Sometimes I never do quite figure things out until after the episode is over.
That seems to have been the case with me lately. I've not been feeling like myself at all these past couple of months. I've been feeling low-key anxious in general, and it's been tough to concentrate on my writing, as my mind's felt very far away. I suspected it might be due to the election and all the trouble Donald Trump had been causing ever since, especially regarding the riot on Capitol Hill. Now that Inauguration Day has come and gone, I know that's precisely what it was.
Now that we have a new president in the White House and Trump is (for now) gone, I feel 100 percent better. I know Joe Biden isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but he's nothing short of a top-tier blessing after four years of Donald Trump. He seems like a genuinely good guy who cares about his country and wants to get to work cleaning up the royal mess Trump's made of it. He wants to get all this COVID nonsense under control so that people can get back to living semi-normal lives without worrying about dying some horrible death, as well.
Life feels normal again, and I've been able to exhale. I'm slowly but surely finding the energy to resume my regular posting schedule over on Medium and elsewhere as a result. Once I've got that back under control, there are some additional balls I'd like to throw into the air for the year to come. Valentine's Day and Mardi Gras are coming up. Spring will be right around the corner next. I'm already starting to get into that spirit, and it feels fantastic.
........
It's not entirely election-related, but my father recently deactivated his Facebook. I'd tell you why, but I don't actually know -- possibly paranoia over freedom of speech and information sharing, the same reason all the right-wingers are leaving platforms like Facebook. I'm sure it didn't hurt to have what he feels is a good excuse to stop pretending he cares what's going on in my life, though. I rarely to never heard from him as it was, but when I did, it was almost always through Facebook. So now that he's not on there anymore, I don't expect to hear from him again any time soon -- possibly not ever.
My father and I have never had much of a relationship. Even when I was still growing up, he was rarely around and wasn't all that involved in my life. He's a fun-buzz dad, so he was the type that might have been down to take a road trip, hit a movie, or do something else "special" when there was no one else better who wanted to go. However, he was never the type who wanted to be there for you when you're really going through it in life. If you insisted on it because you were desperate, it was always obvious he didn't want to help you and didn't think he should have to.
At this point, he was mostly only interested in maintaining access to me in case he ever needed something from me. I got tired of his lack of genuine effort a long time ago. Once my father realized I had long ago grown up and shed my childish need to please him, he didn't see the point in feigning interest anymore. I heard from him less and less. And now, this. He didn't even feel the need to lob some lame excuse into my inbox first.
I feel like I should be more upset, but I don't actually feel much about it at all. There's some strange emotion flickering there at the center of it all, but it feels strangely similar to relief. Having my father pretend he wanted to stay in touch because he actually wanted to keep up with his daughter when we both knew otherwise made me feel like I was being gaslit. At least this feels honest. I was already filtering him out of many of my posts on the off chance he decided to check in because I was no longer comfortable sharing anything sensitive, important, or profound with him. Now I suppose there's one less person I have to worry about on that front.
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