I have been sitting on my couch for 3 days. All day
Saturday, all day Sunday, and all night tonight, from the moment I walked in
the door from work.
If you knew me personally (and I realize that you don’t,
because I’m anonymous. But if you did…) you would know that I DO NOT sit on the
couch. Ever. If I am awake, I am up. I am doing, cleaning, cooking, sewing,
something. Constantly.
In fact, this couch has been a point of contention for
The Fiance and I since we moved in together almost 3 years ago. HE sits on the
couch. A lot. He sits for hours every night watching TV. It is how he unwinds,
unplugs, shuts down for the day. And he wants me to do it with him, to spend
that time with him. Sitting on the couch. Watching TV. For hours. Every night.
I just can’t.
I hate TV. Sure, there are a few shows that
I can watch. If the story is really good, not based on real life, or if its got
really hot actors/actresses (What? I’m only human). But I can’t usually sit for
an entire show. I hop up at every commercial. Or I’ve got some form of work in
my lap that I can do from the couch. Just sitting on the couch, zoning out in
front of the TV, is NOT relaxing for me. Its torturous. It makes me crazy.
Restless. Edgy.
If I am on the couch, doing nothing, its because I am
very sick, recovering from surgery, or something is very wrong.
If I am sitting on the couch, on my own accord, for the 3rd
day in a row, something is very, very wrong.
It is the end of January. There are about 16 inches of
snow on the ground, and more is falling. The roads are slushy and crappy, and
no one knows how to drive on them. Nothing is pretty and white and pristine –
its all grey and dirty and bleak. We are also in the 3rd (or maybe it’s
the 4th) week of record breaking cold temperatures. The HIGH today
was 3 degrees. The HIGH. The low, with windchill, is -30 degrees. Negative
fucking thirty. The infinitely wise weathermen have not told us when this will
end, only that it won’t be anytime soon.
I hate winter. I hate snow. I hate cold. I am a summer
person, I need sun, I need to be outside, I need to not have my fucking face frozen
off walking to the car. Summer, spring even, doesn’t feel real anymore. A
distant memory, and fairy tale. It literally feels like winter will NEVER end.
EVER.
I have been on the couch for 3 days. I’m not sick, I’m
not injured, but I have been on the couch for 3 days. Not because I’ve wanted
to be, I’ve hated every minute of it. I’ve sat here, played games on my phone,
tried my damndest to read my book, and felt guilty. Guilty about all of the
wasted time. Guilty about all of the things that I have to do, should be doing.
Guilty about sitting on the couch. So, why don’t I just get the fuck up, right?
Truthfully; I don’t want to. I don’t want to do all of
the things that I have to do. I don’t want to do any of the things that I want to do. I don’t want to do anything.
I also don’t want to sit here, waste time, look out the window at the frigid
cold and grey snow that seems endless, and accomplish nothing.
I. Want. Nothing.
It pisses me off, all of it. And normally being pissed
off is my greatest fuel. Normally, I can grab hold of pissed off and use it.
Where I am at right now though is not normal. The pissed off just goes into the
pile of everything else that sucks.
That pile pretty much sits on my lap as I sit on the
couch. It weighs me down. It blocks my view of anything good or happy or
hopeful so that all I can see, all I can feel, is EVERYTHING SUCKS. It reminds
me that I am neck deep in the nastiest winter of my time, and that there’s no
end in sight. It reminds me that I’ve wasted 3 days on this fucking couch and
that I’m likely to waste even more, even though I really can’t afford to do
this anymore. I’m already behind. It reminds me that I don’t want to sit here
anymore, but I have to, the pile is just too heavy.
The Fiance doesn’t get it. “Just get up” he says. “If you
don’t want to sit there anymore, just get up. Do something.”
I don’t want to.
“Then don’t. Just sit and relax.” He says. “Nothing wrong
with that.”
I don’t want to just sit here. I am not relaxing. I am
drowning. I am stuck.
The Fiance doesn’t get it, but I know some of you will.
This is why I haven’t written. I felt this coming, and
spent all my effort and energy fighting it, until I couldn’t anymore. And now I
am on the couch. I’ll shake out of it eventually. I always do.