Until recently, I was not exactly feeling myself. Mentally, I mean. At the end of every semester, it seems, I drop into a funk, where nothing seems good enough or entertaining enough, and when everything starts to lose its luster and/or bores me. Everybody leaves town, I lose contact with a large amount of friends and colleagues, and I sort of retreat into myself. Nobody contacts me, I don't contact anyone else, and I hole up in the house, listless, because all of the responsibilities I previously had to deal with during the semester (such as grading papers, making lesson plans, and taking care of other professor-oriented work) simply disappears. It stops, finally, after weeks and months on end of waiting for it to stop, waiting to get a bit of breathing space.
When it stops so suddenly, mentally, psychologically, and physiologically I don't know how to deal with it. I suddenly have this abundance of free time that feels like time I should be spending doing something constructive or something beneficial to myself or my students, except there's nothing to do. So, in response, I clean my house. I do the dishes, take out the trash, load and empty the dishwasher, vacuum, and do the laundry. I go grocery shopping for what I need. I shower and sleep on a regular basis at set intervals, not just when I have the time to do so. I cook and eat real meals, not just a sandwich on the way to bed so I can put something on my stomach. I brush the cats to remove all of their excess shed hair, cooing at them the whole time so that they're not scared of the brushing or combing they're receiving. I catch up with the news. This time around, even, I spent time wrapping Christmas presents for Daisy and her parents, and writing out/mailing out Christmas cards to friends and family.
Still, there comes a point (usually within the first three days or so of having all the free time in the world) that everything is done that can possibly be done. I play catch-up with all of the stuff around the house that I've been neglecting all semester long, but once I'm finished with it, I'm finished with it. When I have enough leftover cooked food and plenty more in the fridge and pantry, when the floors have been vacuumed and the laundry and dishes washed and put away, and the cats have shiny, shed-hair-free coats, even those things stop -- and I am then left with true nothingness, a vast expanse of time with nothing to do to keep me occupied, entertained, or even satisfied in life. After a day or two, my podcasts become boring. Another day or two after that, it's no longer fun to spend hours on Facebook or Twitter, or to play any of my video games (even though, during the semester, I have no time at all to play any of them). Slowly, I become bitter and jaded at the world, and being stuck at home doesn't really help much with that, as if I had somewhere to go, something to do, or money to do something with, I wouldn't feel that way. The reality, however, is that I am incredibly poor, 90% of my friends and colleagues have left town for the holidays (and the other 10% or so have plans between now and New Year's almost every single day), and as I'm not flying home for Christmas this year, it's not like I can look forward to getting out of Kansas to see friends and family back east.
When all of these things coalesce, I become a pretty dark person. I don't like who I become, but I can't do much to change it. That's when the funk sets in -- or, more appropriately, it's a very quick plunge into deep depression.
It's not a secret that I've battled with depression my entire life; for a brief time, in college, I was on medication for it (Lexapro, which I so lovingly referred to as "apathy pills"). I tend to slip into it pretty deeply for a few weeks every year before I can finally pull myself out of it again. I'm not entirely sure, of course, that depression should be classified as a "mental illness," at least not with me, anyway. I know the causes of my depression and why it strikes/when it strikes. For me, it's equal parts being very poor and worrying about how I'm going to pay my bills, and suddenly having all structure that kept me busy and occupied on a daily basis just disappearing. I know this because when I've had money and when I've been able to keep occupied doing things I love to do, I've never been happier in my life. Those two things are what make my life...well, my life.
So I've been feeling like this for most of the last week or so, which has basically been since I finished the semester and came home for the winter break. To try to occupy myself and get myself thinking about other things, I've watched the first three seasons of Breaking Bad, as mentioned before, in the span of about a week and a half. For those of you who haven't seen it, Breaking Bad isn't exactly the most uplifting and/or happy-go-lucky television series. Some (read: many) of its episodes are like a metaphorical punch to the gut -- which indeed does make it one of the best series to air on American television in many, many years, but doesn't necessarily make one who's already depressed want to jump up and take on the world. So, in hindsight, that was probably a bad idea.
I eventually came to the conclusion that I may have problems, but I don't have Walter White-level problems. And this made me feel a bit better about my life. Since Monday or so, I've slowly been feeling better, to the point where now I'm almost completely normal. And that feels good.
Which is good, because I turn 31 today.
Look, I'm not a big fan of birthdays. They used to be fun as a kid. In saying that I mean that I used to enjoy them a lot more than I enjoy them now. Because of this, right now I'm doing nothing but sitting here at my desk, at 12:43 AM, with Pete sitting across my shoulders.
Don't believe me?
Yes, I realize that isn't the most flattering photo of me ever taken, but it makes my point.
Last year, when I turned 30, Daisy was here. She brought down a cake that she'd made, and we had our early "birthday/Christmas dinner" involving the god-awful beast known as Tofurky, something which we swore to never, ever ingest again. She left that afternoon, I went to bed early, and got up really really early (like, 1AM) in order to catch my flight home to West Virginia the next morning.
Obviously, on some levels my life was quite a bit different then than it is now. It's also still evolving and changing. As my birthday posts here in my blog are sort of a "State of the Union" sort of thing, it's important to note the differences and similarities.
For one, last year I was still a grad student, I wasn't yet engaged to Daisy, and I had a hell of a lot more money in my bank account than I have now. Now, of course, I have a fiancee, a second degree, and I am now an actual professor, but most other things remain the same. I still live in the same house. I still drive the same car. I still have the cats (which should go without saying after the picture above). I still fit into the same clothing -- some of it better than I did before, which is always a plus. I don't have any major health issues. I mean, in the big picture only a few things have changed. I have a few more gray hairs here and there on occasion (don't worry, I pluck them out when I see them, and they're usually in my beard). My hairline is receding a bit more. Sometimes my knees and ankles ache. I'm far from being an old man, but I notice things like this a lot more as I get older.
Age 30 was a big turning point for me in many ways, and over the year that I was 30, it seems like I "grew up" in many ways that I hadn't before. I mean, I got engaged. I became a professor. I stopped wearing comic book t-shirts every day (though this was really only because I personally felt a responsibility to look "more respectable" as an actual professor). I came to terms with my student loan debt and my finances more than I have at probably any other time of my life. I began thinking about and planning for my future with set goals in mind much, much more than before, when I was just sort of skipping through life and trying to survive day-to-day. That's kind of important when, y'know, my wedding is coming up in several months.
However, in many ways, I still act like a swingin' bachelor in his early twenties. I'll go two or three days without showering sometimes. I'll grow out my beard for many months at a time because fuck it, who do I have to impress? I let my hair grow really long and unruly. I will occasionally have a beer and some Doritos for breakfast. When I can, I'll sleep ten hours at a time before downing a pot of coffee poured cup-by-cup into a Batman mug and smoking through most of a pack of cigarettes while playing a video game. I drive a beat-up car with faded paint and literally hundreds of thousands of miles on it, but it goes fast and has a loud stereo. I'll spend hours with friends quoting Star Wars or discussing the merits of Chris Claremont's X-Men run. That -- all of that -- is just who I am, and regardless of age, I doubt much of this will change even after I'm married to Daisy.
I'll be captured in pictures like these:
As well as pictures like these:
And all of them represent me equally as a person, as a man of my age.
That's me and Daisy, by the way, in case you couldn't figure that out.
It's all about perspective, really.
Am I a different person than I was a year ago? Yes, I am. In many ways. Do I necessarily feel different, or feel older? No. I'm just me.
Daisy was the first person to wish me happy birthday, and she sang me the song while on Skype tonight.
"When you're 35, I'll still be in my twenties," she said.
"I know, and I'll be able to say I'm 35 and married to a twenty-something. Giggity."
Daisy is a little less than six years younger than me. It's about the same age difference between her own parents, actually. Or at least pretty close, anyhow.
Nobody has asked me if I'm doing anything for my birthday, which is good, 'cause I'm not. I took a nap in the evening last night, and my only plans are to shower, finish off the third season of Breaking Bad, and watch for the packages I have coming in the mail -- Jane has more than likely already sent out her Christmas cookies, my mother said (despite my request for her not to do so) she sent me a box which will arrive today or tomorrow, and I still have one of Daisy's Christmas presents on its way to me in the mail...very slowly on its way, apparently, as all of her other stuff arrived two weeks ago and has already been wrapped.
So no, I'm not doing anything for my birthday. Nobody's throwing me a party, nobody's taking me out for drinks, nobody's giving me loads of presents -- not that I would want any of that stuff anyhow. Daisy asked me a while back if I wanted her to make me a cake or anything like that, and asked me what sort of food I wanted her parents to make when we had my "birthday party" at the house in Omaha the day after Christmas. I originally told her that neither she nor her parents had to do anything special for me, of course -- again, it's just me -- but eventually relented. She is making me vegan Butterfinger bars (I found the recipe) in lieu of a "birthday cake," and tonight I finally figured out what I wanted my "birthday dinner" to be.
"Poutine," I said. "Plain and simple."
"...you're serious?"
"Yes, I'm absolutely serious. Real poutine, not vegan poutine. French fries, cheese curds, and gravy."
"Eww," she replied.
"You think it sounds gross, and everyone thinks it sounds gross...until they actually eat it. And then they realize that some sort of unholy alchemy has taken place between those three ingredients when mixed together, and it becomes the absolute best food ever."
Daisy's mother is Canadian. Daisy, by extension, is half-Canadian (and holds dual citizenship, actually, but that's neither here nor there). You'd think a Canadian would have an amazing appreciation for poutine, especially if it were veganized. To Daisy, however, it sounds vile in all its forms.
As an aside, she once found a vegan recipe for poutine, but it involved tofu, and tofu can stay the hell away from me except in small, small doses in certain dishes. Bad things happen to my digestive system when it comes in contact with tofu. I'll leave it at that.
Whether her parents will go for the poutine idea or whether she'll completely forget I brought it up by morning (as she was desperately, deliriously tired when I discussed it with her tonight) remains to be seen. While I personally think it would be awesome, again, it's not necessary -- Daisy's parents never have to do anything for me, and of course, I would never ask them to.
Finally, not do be outdone by last year's "Winter Storm Draco" and "Winter Storm Euclid" that seriously disrupted my travel plans and schedules between my birthday and Christmas (as I like to point out, I experienced Draco no less than three times -- here, flying into Chicago, and once again on the ground after getting off the plane in Pittsburgh), this weekend the first "big" snowstorm of the season is supposed to hit Kansas.
Here's the latest projections, from a few hours ago:
For those of you who don't know Kansas geography or town locations, Newton is directly below the last "n" in "Hutchinson." Hutch is about 30 miles directly west of me. So, as you can see by plotting that on the graph....I'm basically in the dead center of where the heaviest snow is supposed to fall.
It's supposed to start tonight...as ice and freezing rain. And we could have a half-inch of that first before it all turns over to snow.
I would like to take a moment to mention that yesterday -- December 19 -- it was 63 degrees in the afternoon before I went to take my nap. I know this because I went down to check the mail for bills and birthday cards at about 3PM, and it felt like May or early June outside.
Luckily, because I knew I wouldn't be going anywhere for some time, after I went grocery shopping earlier this week I put the car in the garage, where it has remained since. It's got new oil and coolant and more than half a tank of gas, and it'll be fine in there for most of the winter break, protected from the elements and cold.
However, this does not bode well for my holiday travel schedule regardless.
Daisy works until Monday. She goes back to work tonight. She took Monday night off (she usually works Monday nights) and will be coming down here when she gets off work in the morning. Projections are that this storm will last through Sunday night before it moves off, but I don't yet know the projected snow/ice totals for Omaha.
Earlier this year, as you may remember, she was returning home from a trip down here when she plowed headfirst into a fast-moving snowstorm that rolled in and shut down I-80. She had to spend a night in the hotel in York (conveniently enough, right next to the Walmart we always stop at there) before she could make it the rest of the way home the next day. I'd rather not have a repeat of that scenario, obviously, for either of us. She drives a Hyundai -- a nice, safe vehicle that's relatively new and in great shape, but is mostly plastic and fiberglass. Even my Monte Carlo, with its 3,700lb. dry weight and massive tires/wheelbase wouldn't have saved her in that situation.
I don't get freaked out driving in snow -- I grew up on top of a mountain in West Virginia, and I've seen it all. In February, when we had a blizzard that closed down almost everything here in Kansas (including the university) for the better part of a week, I was still able to drive back and forth, to and from Walmart to get cat food and cigarettes (priorities, you know) with few issues aside from a little fishtailing here and there around sharp corners. Daisy's Hyundai is very easy, reliable, and fun to drive, but I would definitely trust the Monte Carlo for its weight and handling much more in nasty weather.
Of course, with the Monte Carlo there's always that "well, the engine's blown up and we're stranded now" possibility, which is why we always take her car back and forth on trips regardless of the weather or time of year.
"We have to watch this weather carefully, babe," I told her earlier tonight. "A few hours' window between when the storm stops and moves through and you get in the car to come down here is so not enough time for the road crews to clean and clear off everything, even on the interstates. I don't want a repeat of the 'stuck in York' scenario."
"Yeah, yeah," she said, waving me off. "We'll wait and see what happens."
She knows I get my jimmies rustled over weather, but they get especially rustled over weather that adversely affects any travel plans for me from point A to point B. Since yesterday afternoon, the forecast has been continually updated every few hours, and each time it's gotten progressively worse for my area.
The problem here is that we're on a schedule, as we frequently are when traveling back and forth between Omaha and Newton, but this time it's more important than most, seeing as it's...well...Christmas. If we had to delay the trip an extra day until Tuesday (Christmas Eve), we wouldn't even get back to Omaha until probably 3 or 4AM on Christmas morning, and would certainly miss the entire Christmas Eve dinner the family is planning...not to mention the fact that we really wouldn't have a Christmas morning because we'd be sleeping through it. That's the worst-case scenario, obviously.
Best-case scenario? The storm is weaker than predicted and/or doesn't completely snarl the roads and interstates, and we get there on the morning of Christmas Eve, Tuesday -- or even Monday night.
What will more than likely happen? The storm will hit full-force, Daisy will be delayed in coming down here at least until Monday night, especially if the interstates are shut down and the other roads are a mess (it doesn't take a lot for them to shut down I-80 in both directions, really) -- at which point we'll either sleep fast and leave early in the morning, or we'll basically have to turn back around and drive back north -- and we'll get home in Omaha between dawn and midday on Tuesday.
I'm prepared for either eventuality -- I told Daisy not to risk her life or her car just because it's Christmas and she wants me to be with the family a few hours earlier. Christmas falling mid-week sucks for many reasons, but the biggest one is the travel logistics in regards to Daisy's work schedule and the weather. Regardless of when we leave Kansas, we'll be returning on the night/late-night hours of the 27th because she has to go back to work next Saturday night and work through New Year's morning, I believe. It's a fairly short trip regardless, and the weather, days on the calendar, and her work schedule isn't helping it a whole lot. She is right, however -- we'll just have to wait and see what happens.
So that's my birthday post, I suppose. While writing this, the storm is apparently getting an early head start. Reports of freezing rain and freezing mist have been coming in all over the area, and upon checking my front windows, they are coated in a thin glaze of ice -- as is everything else outside, apparently. Happy birthday to me, right?
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