2 steps forward, 10 steps back

Because progress is never a straight line

I spent last week locked in my apartment, ordering DoorDash, eating cookie dough and microwave popcorn, and drinking an entire case of Code Red Mountain Dew.

And I did it while binging Netflix, and trying to finish Final Fantasy 13 before the Mountain Dew ran out…

And I “gave up” cookie dough, microwave popcorn, and Mountain Dew, back around the start of the month…

But I just couldn’t get through this past week without them.

After getting sick in El Paso and missing my nephew’s graduation (which was the entire reason I flew to El Paso to begin with), and after coming home to an empty, lonely apartment…

And after dealing with some heavy emotional fallout from all the things I’m working on this month in therapy…

I needed to take a step or two backwards.

I needed time to decompress… to let it all hang out… to be a hot mess and just not care for a couple of days…

And then I had therapy, and it opened up a whole new layer of emotional turmoil, and a couple of days turned into a week… and now I’m out of Mountain Dew, and cookie dough, and I’m getting tired of popcorn… but the emotional fallout is still holding me down.

I think it’s been building for a couple months, actually; I just didn’t want to admit it, because I thought it would “ruin” all the progress I’ve been making since I moved to Lubbock, almost a year and a half ago, now.

Right now, sitting here wiping away tears as I try to finish this week’s newsletter, I feel like I’ve ruined all kinds of things:

• I haven’t volunteered at the Buddy Holly Hall since sometime last November (and I love live entertainment, and get so much from volunteering!)

• I’ve alienated a couple of friends here in Lubbock who I thought were going to be really good for me, but now I’m mad and I don’t know how to deal with being mad and just talk things out, so instead I’m just ignoring them.

• I’ve stopped looking at my quarterly and annual goals and just been like, “Whatever… I can’t handle all that so I’m just gonna try and do what I can, and who cares…”

• I’ve stopped networking with other writers, veterans, nonprofits, mental health workers, etc., on LinkedIn, because I’m just tired and I don’t know what to say to people anymore.

• I’ve started napping almost every afternoon, and going to bed at like, 7 p.m., because I just can’t even.

• I’ve stopped going to church every Sunday.

• I haven’t called my mom in like, probably over a month. (I did see Mom and Dad in El Paso, though, and wished her a happy Mother’s Day in person).

I can probably come up with another 6-7 things I think I’m ruining, without too much additional effort, but I think this list gives a pretty good idea.

I’m so tired of constant, forward progress. I can’t do any more right now.

I need some time to shut down and reassess.

But I’m still trying to push through, to get to the next breakthrough moment, to make myself proud of yet another massive accomplishment…

Because if I just stop for a minute, and try to collect my thoughts, I’m afraid I’ll be judged for not making progress the way that I have been. And I’m afraid I’ll regress, and I’ll wind up permanently locking myself in my apartment, hiding from everything, all the time, exactly the way that I used to do for so, so long…

Just saying I need a break makes me feel like I’m obviously not growing - and if I’m not going forward, the only other option is going back. Or at least, that’s what I’ve always been told.

The thing is, I’m already going backward. As if the junk food isn’t evidence enough: I’m also hiding in my room, watching way too much Netflix, looking at all kinds of pornography, avoiding friends and family, trying to keep myself “together” enough that I won’t have to deal with all the heavy emotions that therapy is bringing up…

I’ve already taken several steps back. (Maybe not ten, but at least nine. Kidding. Not kidding.)

I don’t know what the right “next” step is. I’ve never seen anybody take on so many of life’s challenges, and conquer even a portion of them.

I’m sure people in my life have done it. Actually, I take that back. I’m not sure anyone in my life ever has. Because no one has ever done it or talked about it, around me. So I don’t honestly know that what I’m attempting to do, even can be done.

I’m flying blind, hoping the right people will see and be able to help me course correct - but I don’t even know who the right people are, or where to find them, or how to ask for help, or what kind of help to ask for.

I’m jumping into the abyss every day, and hoping that there’s solid ground below. And I’ve jumped as far as I want to… and then some… and now, I’m just scared. I don’t want to jump anymore.

If I’m being completely honest, I kind of want to go backwards.

I don’t think I’m ready to take another step forward, just yet.