A long post about spoons, laundry, and the social acceptance of not being okay

PART ONE

I'll probably split this post into two parts. I have a lot of posts that end up as just drafts sitting in my write-y box thing, but hopefully this one won't be.

It's 12:16AM on a Tuesday. I'm planning to go to yoga at 7AM but I'm not quite sure if I'll make it. Peeling myself out of bed sometimes feel like when you're trying to delicately detach a pancake from a pan that isn't greased enough. But instead of a spatula you have a spoon. I'll talk more about spoons later. And whether it's 7AM or 12PM, it's much the same feeling, just with a more burnt pancake.

There's a lot that's bothering me right now. My room is very messy, my computer's still not hooked back up to my monitor, I think I caught a stomach bug (thanks, Will), the weather is cold, my trash is full, I have a huge pile of laundry to do, a stack of homework that I'm not looking at (it's like a T-Rex, if you don't move it can't see you, but it can smell fear) and a pile of emails I'm joyfully putting off because my Chrome window on my laptop can't seem to reach my school email. Oh, and my bed pad is slowly sliding off my bed, but I'm very short and it's very hard to shove back on without taking the whole sheet off and if I take the sheet off I might as well wash it but you know about that giant pile of laundry? I don't need it getting bigger.

Bummer.

So you may be wondering why I'm awake at 12:16-- well, it's 12:19 now-- when I have to be up so early. First of all, I got caught up in a pretty crazy movie with an M. Night Sha-lama-lama-ding twist at the end. From here you may ask, Mackenzie, sweet beautiful child, why are you watching Netflix so late when you just mentioned having all that homework?

Well, for starters, I work very, very efficiently under pressure. I spent the first half of my college career denying that while furiously procrastinating and doing papers at the last minute, papers that I made wonderful grades on. Sustainable? Probably not. Long-term? Definitely not. Good thing I'm almost done with college, right???

Anyway, why are you watching Netflix? Right, okay, so while I really don't like starting one thing while another is unfinished (read: a movie, book, TV show, etc.) I have a real problem with putting things down and never picking them back up. Books-- so many. I have so many books I want to read, but they just stay piled on my desk. Why? I have no energy to pick them up and read them. I have no spoons. (What's with all the talk about spoons?) It's not just books-- movies, games, TV, scarves, you name it, I won't finish it. But I finished this movie. I'm almost weirdly proud of myself.

Right, spoons. Why are we talking about spoons? Whelp, I have a fine little Wikipedia article that could explain it a lot better than I could:

"The spoon theory is a disability metaphor used to explain the reduced amount of energy available for activities of daily living and productive tasks that may result from disability or chronic illness. Spoons are an intangible unit of measurement used to track how much energy a person has throughout a given day. Each activity requires a given number of spoons, which will only be replaced as the person "recharges" through rest. A person who runs out of spoons has no choice but to rest until their spoons are replenished."

So... yeah, spoons. Other people could understand this as "fucks to give," but my grandmother reads this blog (hi Nana!), so we're going to talk about spoons. Depression sucks away all your spoons in the strangest way. Sometimes you wake up and you have TEN BILLION SPOONS. So many spoons you don't know what to do with. You make to-do lists, you do assignments, you eat all three meals in a day and you're on top of the world! Things are looking up. Life can't be bad with all of these spoons!

But then the next day you wake up and you have a paltry three spoons. Where are all my spoons? Is there a spoon thief? (Spoiler: Depression is the spoon thief.) Suddenly I have to decide between what I can make myself do today, what possibilities I have with my given spoons. Going to class is a spoon. Definitely the biggest, most important spoon. But getting out of bed is another spoon. And then a shower-- gheez, that's three spoons already! What are you going to do with all the laundry-- the trash, the dishes, the homework, the emails?

I hear you-- "Mackenzie, I don't feel like I need to expend a spoon on getting up. I do that every day! Everyone gets out of bed every day, what's the big deal?" Well, I have another quote for you!

"One of the tenets of the spoon theory is that many people with disabilities or chronic illness must carefully plan their daily activities to conserve their spoons, while most people without any disabilities or chronic illnesses don't need to worry about running out. Because healthy people do not feel the impact of spending spoons for mundane tasks such as bathing and getting dressed, they may not realize the amount of energy expended by chronically ill or disabled people just to get through the day."

 12:33AM and I'm still talking about spoons. Is this what a downward spiral feels like? Am I going to spoon hell? The road to hell is paved with well-intentioned spoons. Ha ha ha. I'm so funny.

PART TWO

Good morning! Just kidding, it's 2:18PM. 2:19 now. Sometimes I struggle to write quickly, and what I mean by that is I often get distracted. I hope writing never starts feeling like a chore to me, or else it it will probably end up like all the other chores I've yet to do. Remember the laundry? Yeah, I don't want writing to stack up on the floor on crumpled t-shirt at a time. 

Re-reading what I wrote last night, I'm a bit hesitant to continue. I think a life of happiness is always an uphill battle, but I put a lot of pressure on myself to be okay. I mean, everyone else seems to be doing pretty okay right now despite their personal spoon hell, so why should I give myself wiggle room? 

And there's the problem. It's so hard to have a bad day. I often just keep it to myself. Some days I won't get up or act like a normal human being at all-- I'll cancel all my outings, ask a friend if I can see their notes from class later, then roll back over to stare poignantly at the gray dorm room wall and listen to the air conditioner chug-chug-chug until I fall back asleep. But then when asked how my day was, I'd just shrug and say "oh, well, it's happening. Haha, Mondays suck, amirite? Oh, it's Tuesday? That's like half-Monday." 

When really, I'd rather say something like "HAHA, OH MAN YEAH I DIDN'T GET OUT OF BED TILL THREE AND INSTEAD OF TAKING A SHOWER I JUST SPRAYED MY HAIR WITH DRY SHAMPOO AND PUT A HAT ON, THEN HAD SOME TAQUITOS BEFORE I STEPPED OVER THE GIANT LAUNDRY PILE TO ESCAPE TO THE DREARY OVERCAST CHILLY DAY AND HOPING I DON'T AWKWARDLY BUMP INTO A PROFESSOR OF THE CLASS I SKIPPED THAT MORNING." 

You see the laundry is a reoccurring theme. Ugh. I really need to do it. 

This morning I didn't get up for 7AM yoga, I didn't eat breakfast, but I made it to class. I answered an email. I didn't cancel a meeting I had this afternoon. It's the little things, you know? 

2:36. I got distracted again. 

If you take anything from this new post, take this: it's okay to not be okay. It's okay to have a bad day, or a bad week, or a bad month. It's okay to feel like you had or are having a bad semester or a bad year. But just know that the sun will still rise tomorrow (pending a destructive galactic catastrophe) and a new day will bring the potential for a better day. 

Note that I didn't say. "Tomorrow will be better!" or "It's always darkest before the dawn!" or "You have to eat a bowl of positivity at the wake of each new day to bring forth happiness and love into you life! Yay!" I said that each new day has the potential to be better. And you can't forget that potential. When I'm having a bad day, when I'm having a bad week, when I tell people I'm alright even though my insides are crawling like a cat trying to escape a bag, when I feel like every step forward results in two steps back, and time warps around me to suggest that life, indeed, wants to see me fail, I still remember that tomorrow could be better. 

Think of it as a permanent weather forecast: a 50% chance of rain, but also a 50% chance of sunny with a chance of spoons. 

I have to head to that meeting soon, but I'll leave you with a poem that I often think about sometimes. What does happiness mean to you? What does success mean? 


"A Good Day" 
Kait Rokowski

Yesterday, I spent 60 dollars on groceries,
took the bus home,
carried both bags with two good arms back to my studio apartment
and cooked myself dinner.
You and I may have different definitions of a good day.
This week, I paid my rent and my credit card bill,
worked 60 hours between my two jobs,
only saw the sun on my cigarette breaks
and slept like a rock.
Flossed in the morning,
locked my door,
and remembered to buy eggs.
My mother is proud of me.
It is not the kind of pride she brags about at the golf course.
She doesn’t combat topics like, ”My daughter got into Yale”
with, ”Oh yeah, my daughter remembered to buy eggs”
But she is proud.
See, she remembers what came before this.
The weeks where I forgot how to use my muscles,
how I would stay as silent as a thick fog for weeks.
She thought each phone call from an unknown number was the notice of my suicide.
These were the bad days.
My life was a gift that I wanted to return.
My head was a house of leaking faucets and burnt-out lightbulbs.
Depression, is a good lover.
So attentive; has this innate way of making everything about you.
And it is easy to forget that your bedroom is not the world,
That the dark shadows your pain casts is not mood-lighting.
It is easier to stay in this abusive relationship than fix the problems it has created.
Today, I slept in until 10,
cleaned every dish I own,
fought with the bank,
took care of paperwork.
You and I might have different definitions of adulthood.
I don’t work for salary, I didn’t graduate from college,
but I don’t speak for others anymore,
and I don’t regret anything I can’t genuinely apologize for.
And my mother is proud of me.
I burned down a house of depression,
I painted over murals of greyscale,
and it was hard to rewrite my life into one I wanted to live
But today, I want to live.
I didn’t salivate over sharp knives,
or envy the boy who tossed himself off the Brooklyn bridge.
I just cleaned my bathroom,
did the laundry,
called my brother.
Told him, “it was a good day.”