Susan Senator

...I’m especially mad at stupid jumpropes. –Lucy Van Pelt

My sadness converted to rage today. I don’t know why. If depression is anger turned inwards, then anger is sadness stripped of its piteous garb. Which comes first? I was driving around honking and shouting (inside the car). Everyone was making me mad. I called no one back, except my sister. I wanted to delete my entire blog, or write a totally angry post. Sometimes when I feel that way I just have Ned take it down for a while, so that you’ll get NOT FOUND when you click on me. Sometimes it makes me feel childishly happy to thwart people that way.

You see why I needed to get out of my cage. In an effort to expel some of the poison, I did a drenching workout, 3 miles on the stairmaster, (how do you climb three miles of stairs?) which actually also made me mad because the woman next to me was singing and her headphones were loud so that I could barely hear Saad or Natacha. Stop being so happy, I kept thinking. I kept turning and looking pointedly at her but she did not stop. I lifted weights, looking in the unflattering mirror and hating the way my muscles looked. I wanted to punish my fat gut so I did so many harsh uphill crunches that my abs actually hurt, like they were pinched. But after hottub and a long hot shower I had a deep tissue massage with the woman who once gave Nat a session of cranial-sacral therapy, and that is when the day started to turn around.

I really wanted to spend time with her because I knew she would not ask me anything when I told her about Nat leaving, but would just say, “that’s a very big thing,” (which she did). I loved the way she had me exhale deeply before she began. The almost-pain/pretty much pain was exactly what I needed. I think I fell asleep a couple of times because I suddenly heard myself snore.

It was the first time my body felt good in days.