Troubles

Explaining my 10-week hiatus

First, an update: nine months after deciding to move from Maryland to Tennessee, I’m still living in Maryland. For the last two months, the only thing I can say about when I will actually move is, “any day now.”

The financial, emotional, and mental strain created by my current situation verges on unbearable.

I’m not comfortable being public with my troubles, and the last ten weeks or so have been nothing but troubles. I couldn’t bring myself to write about any of it. I apologize to those of you who have paid to subscribe. I promise I’ll make it up to you.

I expend enormous mental and emotional energy trying to keep my current mental and emotional state from impacting the people around me. It is not easy, and it gets harder every day.

It’s something of a vicious circle. Suppressing the enormous stress I’m enduring and keeping my mental health challenges to myself helps me present myself to others as focused, confident, and stoic, but it also makes it easy for the people around me to say and do things that — unbeknownst to them — add significant weight to my stress and depression.

Appearing confident and stable encourages others to unload their own baggage on me, adding to my problems. On the rare occasions when I do open up about what I’m going through, others tend to brush it off as a momentary reaction to a specific incident, assuring me that I’ll be back to normal in no time.

I’m not so sure.

After months of chaos, indecision, and loss, it’s hard to imagine anything ever being “normal” again. I’m not sure I know what “normal” is any longer.

I’ll write again as soon as I am able.