Barack Obama Will Be President

Tonight I watched Barack Obama win the Presidential election, and I’m so depressed I wonder how I will get through the night.

Obama was my candidate.  I wanted very much for him to win.  But like every other good thing that has happened since Hal died, I mourn it because he isn’t here to celebrate it with me.

I haven’t posted to this blog in over a month.  Instead, I’ve been trying to make plans for my future, trying to find a career path to take me through the rest of my life and trying to hope.  Tonight, I’ve been thinking that I’d be better off just to give up.

My grief and depression, my loneliness and hopeless is like a beach ball that I’m trying to hold under the water of my daily routine.  I smile and say I’m okay, I go to the gym and to the dojo, I show up for my guitar lessons and club meetings, I go to the grocery store, but all the while I’m struggling to keep my despair submerged.  I go to bed at night exhausted from the effort, and if I allow myself to become too tired, I lose my grip, my real feelings pop to the surface, and I run home to weep.

Obama has just delivered his victory speech.  Jesse Jackson is crying on national television.  I’m crying too.

I haven’t the strength anymore for the life I’m living, for the life I want.  I think I’m going to give up on it and retreat to a smaller, less ambitious life that will be more manageable, one that will leave me with enough energy to hold down that beach ball, because if I let go of it, if I let it float, I’ll drown.

Work. Eat. Bathe. Watch TV.  Sleep, if I can.  Accept the fact that I will be alone for the rest of my life, because who wants an obese woman in her late 40s?  I certainly don’t, but I’m stuck with myself.