On Sundays I spiral. Unless I’m at Disneyland or Disney World then I don’t. But most Sundays- really all Sundays- for the past three months I’ve spiraled.
We were talking about our inner monologues and I said my inner monologue is kind of psychotic right now. Psychotic with a touch of lonely. Then Cheryl said at least I’m not like Amber Heard. I’m not that kind of crazy. And I said what if I am? I just control it better. Like what if I do have crazy thoughts I just don’t let the crazy thoughts turn into actions? I’m manageable crazy.
Maybe it’s not so much psychotic. Maybe it’s more like completely and utterly broken. Picture a wine glass dropped on the floor and shattered to pieces. Or maybe the remnants of a piñata hanging by a thread. Mix in a little bit of deflated pool floatie and you’ve got what my soul currently feels like.
And if people only knew what was happening in my head and on my heart then maybe they’d see.
If my small humans only knew that Auntie Meg wants to cry just as much as they do. That I’m also sad because I miss the people I love. I too get sad when things don’t turn out the way I thought they would. And I definitely feel sad when it’s time to clean up because I don’t like cleaning up either. Little do they realize that Auntie Meg feels it too. In all the same ways that they do.
If the girls in my youth group only knew that Meg struggles with about 90% of the things that they’re also complaining about. The biggest difference is that I don’t have homework and I don’t get my phone taken away when I do something wrong. Other than that, the boys, the workload, the pressure to be something for everybody else… I don’t have it any more figured out than they do.
If the people on Instagram only knew that Meg Alexandra has had more hard days than sunny beach days. That although I post pictures of the endless amounts of pasta I make, the truth is that I have trouble eating because of stress, anxiety, and grief. And even though I post about exercising on a somewhat daily basis, the reason behind all the exercise is so that my mental health doesn’t completely collapse and I fall into a depressive cycle.
But none of these people know. Because I’m manageable crazy.
Until Sunday comes around, and then I spiral.
Because Sunday is the anniversary of when the rug slipped out from under me. Sunday is when it all came tumbling down. Saturday and Sunday don’t have long work days to keep my mind off things and keep the façade running, but I only have enough energy to keep it together for Saturday. On Sunday everything falls apart. Just like it did three months ago.
And each Sunday spiral looks different. The past two weeks it’s been waking up, checking my phone, getting in a panic, jumping to assumption after assumption after assumption. Kailua at 3 AM? Who could that be. One Sunday it was crying so hard I almost threw up. Another Sunday was a burst of tears while I was driving. Actually, twenty minutes ago it was uncontrollable crying with big huge sobs that turned my eyes red and filled my nose with snot.
But the common thread through each Sunday has been the giant pit of emptiness that sits right in the middle of my being. An emptiness that not even a beautiful Lanikai beach day can fill. A weight so heavy that leaves me feeling like half a human. Like no matter what I do or how hard I pray to God, I will never be whole again. I will always be completely and utterly broken.
So on Sundays I spiral, but at least there’s Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and a few more days after until Sunday hits again.