Hammering Myself Into the Ground

Composed on Wed. 7/4/12

 

I’m bent out of shape with all this drama surrounding my blacksmithing. I’ve woken up for the last week or so feeling angry, confused and dazed, and unless I have my morning bowl and several cigarettes, I start yelling and kicking things about and for the rest of the day I’m depressed and defensive. Nothing makes sense, everything sounds like a personal attack and I’m so depressed I’ll cry at the drop of a hat.

 

I found one of those “drop in a quarter and see your weight” machines in the women’s bathroom of the mall and tried it out for the first time. So did John. Unless the machine deliberately takes off some pounds for appeal, I weigh 115lbs and John stands at 152. In our clothing.

 

Ouch!

 

I suspected a few days ago I’d lost weight and I wasn’t getting enough good food in me, but this is ridiculous. At my height, I should be at 130lbs. John should be about 175lbs. We’ve both lost 15lbs. in less than a month! No wonder I’m tired, drained, depressed, and unable to focus or work long at anything in the shop.

 

Ryan (who caught me during my hell week of defensiveness) got ahold of me and asked why I was working in the shop so much and producing so little product. Why AM I working so long in the shop? And why do I find Squatch and myself taking on the brunt of the shop expenses? Why do I not have money – even a little bit per week – accumulating in my bank account? The shops should be making up to a grand a day!

 

Part of it IS because the crowds are tight-wads this year. No one hits over two hundred at our shop on any given day, and we’re lucky if we make that in a weekend.

 

I’m tired. I’m exhausted and I’m malnourished. I’m spending so much time in the shop that I haven’t really had the chance to wander down and visit with my friends from Louisiana, my original family. I feel estranged from them. Granted, we are hanging out with some lovely, lovely people, but it’s folks from Texas, whom I spent most of the year getting to know. My house is a disaster. If we’d had to evacuate last week, we’d’ve lost everything except Mona because nothing is ready to move in a hurry. There’s absolutely no good excuse for why that needs to happen.

 

I’m so backed up it’s not funny. Why is our house a mess? Why is our yard full of trash and bear bait? Why is it so damn hard to catch a ride into town to do laundry and buy some real food?

 

Yesterday John admitted that he’s tired, and just wants to pack it up and get out of here. We can. There’s nothing really stopping us except a destination – where would we go from here? Back home to live in my parents’ yard while we work at Waffle House and Sonic again? In the middle of the hot Midwestern summer?

 

I want more than anything to escape the road life for a few weeks – one day every now and again isn’t going to cut it by a long shot – quit smoking, quit drinking, some place where I can hermit for a while, sit and meditate and relax for real for once. Gain weight. I came out on the road to relax and enjoy my life, not work myself into the ground. After the business meeting with Ryan, I realized that I still have a lot of very old issues buried within me. They haven’t gone away. I showed Ryan a part of me I haven’t had to deal with in years (if you want to know what they’re like, read some of the posts from this blog’s first year).

 

It bothers me. A lot. It means I solved none of my life’s deepest problems. In ten more years, at this rate, I’ll wind up following the path of all the women along my mom’s side of the family… trapped in depression, paranoid, never leaving the house, a shell of my former self, swallowing a host of pills that do nothing at all for me except make me consider suicide more seriously.

 

I must manage my time more effectively. I shouldn’t spend more than four hours a day in there. I need better meals and my house needs to be CLEAN. (It’s really hard to relax in a house you stumble into.) I’m taking some weird meal-replacement shake in the mornings just to get a boost of nutrients into my system. So far that, and taking time out of the shop, is helping.

 

Peace.