It’s Friday, and since I don’t work tomorrow (on what would have been my Mom’s birthday), it really is the last day of the work week for me.  Not that I have anything planned for the weekend, other than doing my laundry on Sunday morning.  I don’t know whether I feel worse on the Fridays before I work on Saturday, or on Fridays before I don’t, but neither one is worth anticipation, and today is no exception.  I feel quite blah.

I did not walk (nor jog) to the station today.  I got slightly stiff, and had a mild exacerbation of my back pain, during the day yesterday, and decided I would give myself a break this morning for my body to do any adapting and recovery it needs.  It’s a bit of a shame; the weather is semi-cool and there is a nice wind blowing, so it would have been pleasant for walking.  Depending on how I feel this afternoon, I may walk back from the train, but then again, I deliberately wore boots today to discourage myself from not letting myself rest.

Also, of course, I like my boots, and wanted to wear them.  As you can see, I have not given them away or otherwise disposed of them yet.

I’m trying to do the whole “I love the world” thing, but I’m having trouble with it.  I haven’t given up yet, but my mood seems to get in the way even of that much.  It’s apparently hard for me even to say that I love the world, let alone myself.

I wish my mood were more consistent.  Little moments where mantras work and when I feel that I’ve made some progress give me a false shot of hope, but then‒as always‒I wake up ridiculously early in the morning and just watch the clock until it’s late enough that I can say, “Fine, you might as well just get up.”  Then I find every little thing stressful and irritating.  Maybe I give up trying to give myself calm, positive self-messages and just try to get in some regular mindfulness meditation and/or self-hypnotism.

Or maybe I should just give up, full stop.

I would obviously like it if I were to be able to be in at least a neutral mood most of the time.  Of course, it would be preferable to be able to be positive a goodly amount of the time, but that’s a lot to ask.  It would even, as I said, be acceptable just to be glum all the time so that I didn’t get all the yo-yo action that drives me ever crazier.

No, I don’t appear to have any clear form of bipolar disorder, based on clinical criteria, just in case anyone’s wondering.  I’ve been seen and evaluated by a decent number of mental health professionals, and though, of course, they could be wrong, they seem to have a consensus about my dysthymia and depression, and none of them seem to consider any form of bipolar to be an issue.  Although maybe I’m masking symptoms and signs of that, even from myself.

It seems unlikely, but I’m apparently pretty good at masking in general, so who knows?  Not me.  We never lost control.  You’re face to face with the man who sold the world.

Sorry, I slipped into quoting a David Bowie/Nirvana song there.  It’s a good song (both versions) and it’s fairly simple to play and sing, so that’s nice.  I haven’t ether played or sung it in quite a while, but I listen to it from time to time.

I think it’s interesting that, in the Nirvana version, Kurt changed the line in the second verse from “We must have died alone, a long, long time ago,” to “I must have died alone, a long, long time ago.”  He definitely gave away some of his internal issues in his choice of lyrics in a lot of his songs, and apparently, even in his covers.  It didn’t do him much good, unfortunately; he certainly didn’t seem to get the help he needed.

I guess it’s hard.  The world is very big and impersonal, and though it is beautiful in all sorts of ways, it does not seem to give a flying f*ck at a rat’s a*s about any particular, extremely finite, living creatures.

Anyway, I guess it’s fitting for me to end the week on a downer, since I tend to start the week on a downer, and the occasional upbeat posts are the exceptions.

I’d like to say something snarky and dismissive and contemptuous to close out, but I really do hope that everyone who reads this has a good weekend, as do all the people whom all the readers love and about whom they care, and then on out to six or so more layers.  What the heck, why doesn’t everyone have a good weekend?  I, myself, don’t expect to do so, but it would be at least some consolation if everyone else in the world did.

See if you can all do me that favor, please.