May is on hiatus

I have not abandoned my blog. I am so busy, I sometimes go all day without using the bathroom. Seriously.

Work is busy, starting up the nonprofit is consuming my life, and then there is the much-loathed holiday season and all of its demands. I'm not a big fan of the holidays. For years, I used to write a holiday newsletter to send out with cards, except it was actually a sarcastic spoof of the traditional annual update. It became so popular that people I didn't even know asked to be on the Christmas mailing list.

When my health took a slide and kept on sliding--and then spiraling into a bleak cavern of despair--I lost my desire to write. I still wrote my journal, but I had no enthusiasm to write creatively. In fact, I had an almost hostile reaction when the holidays rolled around and I didn't even send out cards. I figured that if anyone actually cared about me, they would do a better job of keeping in touch throughout the year. Well, the reaction was profound. At least a dozen people called or wrote not to inquire if something was wrong, but to find out what had happened to the annual newsletter.

What could I say? "I've lost the will to live, and the newsletter has no place in my world now." Or, "I'm so depressed I can't put entire sentences together, let alone sentences that aren't morose." Or, "Don't you get it? I hate the holidays and the damn letter is satire that is supposed to demonstrate exactly that. Duh. I'm done even acknowledging the holidays."

Last year was the worst. I was so severely agitated and depressed after the incident with the police, I became a conscientious Holidays Objector. Not one decoration. No cards sent out, no gifts purchased. Nothing. OK, I made fudge for the people at work because it was the politically savvy thing to do. Then there was a blizzard followed by a severe snowstorm days later, and that sealed the deal. I was miserable and I couldn't pretend otherwise.

Eventually, my husband put out two small decorations in the living room and a wreath on the door. I felt liberated from the feigned cheer and insincere "generosity" of the season. My husband, a person who had always complained loudly about being irritated by all things Christmas, discovered that in fact, when it was obliterated from our home, he actually missed a lot of things about Christmas. Bah, humbug, I say.

A couple of weeks ago, I was working on some things in the house on a Saturday morning when I realized my husband had been outside for a very long time. I got up to make sure he hadn't been injured in some home-improvement mishap. I opened the front door and was shocked at what I saw. My husband was outside stringing Christmas lights along the gutters of our house. The two (tasteful) animated deer lawn ornaments were contentedly grazing on fake silver and white grass. The wreath was strung with Christmas lights and hung on the front porch post. A faux pine garland was draped over a wooden bench out front. I was horrified.

My husband said he did it for me, but we both know that's completely untrue. I'm still not celebrating anything, although, only out of extreme guilt, I am buying presents for my brothers, their families, and my mother.

If you need a gift in a pinch but you resent the need to give one, I highly recommend Rachael Ray's 5-Minute Fudge. It's about the minimum commitment you can make for a holiday gesture without being obvious. He he. If you're really stuck on self-loathing, you can just eat the whole thing yourself. Not that I've done that.

OK, I must go to bed. It's late, I'm slipping into the drug-induced coma, and if I miss the window of opportunity, I'll never get to sleep.

When things have calmed down, I will continue my story about the police, the ER, and what happens after you have been humiliated by the circumstances that reduce your status to absolute powerlessness and strip you of your rights to make decisions on your own behalf. That's a little intense for me to focus on right now. I need to explain all of it though, because the story doesn't come close to ending where I left off.

For now, take in this pearl of wisdom: Never, ever cheerfully tell a cop that you unwaveringly believe that adults have the right to choose their own time and method of death. We own our bodies, and it is our own sole and sovereign right to do with them as we deem most appropriate. Our bodies, our very lives are the only thing that ever entirely belongs to us. Nobody should have the right to interfere in our health care choices or life/death decisions. Period. Yeah, cops don't really get the philosophical or metaphysical implications of that particular school of thought, so if you subscribe to it, keep it to yourself when in the presence of law enforcement.

More later, but for now, goodnight.
Here is a picture I took the last time I went skiing (above the tree line, about 13,000 ft. elevation). For the full effect, click on the picture so you can see it larger and read the yellow sign, too. I couldn't have put together something so unintentionally funny had I tried.