Tired and needing comfort

I have been in need of a change the last few weeks.

While nothing specific has been going wrong I have been depressed on and off for weeks now. Last week it got rather ridiculous and I spent the weekend bouncing back and forth from being on the edge of crying or frantically trying to find something to work on to keep myself busy.

Normally when I get in a mindset where something has to give yet there is nothing I can actively work on, I fall back on a method my friends and family always pick at, moving furniture. Most people seem to put there furniture where they like it once they move in and then rarely change it. I’m the annoying neighbor up at 2 am rearranging the shelves in my bedroom into alphabetical order and pushing the bed into strange angles. I will leave things for a few months and then start moving again. I told my BF once that this was me on a manic binge which she agreed with since she said I even talked faster while frantically trying to rearrange things. I clean and declutter for days on end until the mood passes.

I have been cleaning and decluttering every other week it seems lately and while the place looks great I don’t feel like I have accomplished much. I have pared down my books, given crystal and china to relatives, dismantled a bed to go to a new home soon, and loaded boxes of random junk to head to a donation center in the back of my car.

Sunday I dismantled the bed and took my three favorite stuffed animals from childhood that I have refused to give away off the bed. I needed a place to put them but I have long out grown stuffed animals. On impulse every time I moved them I gathered them up and hugged them tight until I found a place for each of them. My stuffed basset hound, Doggy, now presides over the old spare bedroom/ soon to be office/art room. My bear Ben is on my dresser watching me edit with his sad eyes while Tigger found his way to the shelves in the hallway. Strangely every time I gave them a quick hug throughout the day as I rearranged things, it made me feel better for a while. Later that night the power went out and I sat on the couch cuddling my dog in the same manner by candlelight, Stella giving piggy snorts everytime I stopped petting her for a moment.

I started adding up in my head and it has been over a year since I was in a relationship, it has been several months since I even hugged someone. Maybe I am just lonely and skin hungry. I have never been a tactile person when I am with my family, we are not huggers but when I am in a relationship I love to sit and hold hands, thumbs running along fingers and wrists or to curl against each other reading, one hand stroking a neck or arm.

I need a change but there is very little I can do to change my life right now. So instead I push myself though each day and try to ignore how exhausted I feel all the time. For someone who sits at a desk for eight hours a day, life can be exhausting. And boring. I keep getting home and realizing that I am too brain fried to want to write, I don’t really watch TV and don’t have cable, I just spent 8 hours in front of a computer and don’t want to spend another 4 there. Since I live alone I have a rather small amount of things this leaves available to do, such as clean, sleep, eat, or write. With the way my weight is going, eating needs to be taken off the list.

I have been trying to pull out some books and read more. Somehow since moving I went from a person that read over 100 books last year to someone that has not read a book in six months. I can now say I have at least finished one book, a fun one about hiking the AT that I read the last two weeks.