escape

Last Friday, I got to a point where I started to worry myself, so I threw some clothes in a backpack and drove back to Baton Rouge a day earlier than I needed to be there (Saturday was a 50th/80th birthday party for my dad and grandma; respectively). I spent time with friends and slept on Christie's couch a couple of nights and on T n T's guest bed another night. I drank a lot and spent time with people I love and/or adore and cried a lot and slept very little. I lost 3 pounds.

On Monday, on my way back, I stopped to see my mom and some family members were there. I was told I looked tired and depressed. My mom asked me, "why are you depressed?" I said, "My boyfriend broke up with me, I don't have a job, all my friends live in other towns." She said, "you'll find a job soon." I didn't know how to reply to that, so I muttered, "I know." We went for a pedicure and that was nice until I threw up in the salon bathroom, since all I'd "eaten" that day was juice and that never interacts well with my medicine.

All that to say that when I finally got back to New Orleans, where I thought I was escaping on Friday, I felt better. Driving up the Causeway in 5 o'clock traffic felt relaxing. Walking in to my apartment felt like coming home. I'm still depressed and probably not taking care of myself as I should, but I felt worse in Baton Rouge, surrounded by all those people, than I did alone on my couch. I don't mean to devalue those people, because they didn't cause that breakdown and I think it would have been worse without them. Rather, I think having them help me through it enabled me to come back home and be okay with being alone again, for awhile.