Shopping for Peace

Today I bought two pairs of the same exact sneakers and a new dress. Yesterday, I bought a bunch of new clothes to wear to work. It’s not that I don’t need the new clothes for work. I was asked to dress not quite so funky and in order to tone things down a bit, I really do need new clothes.

The sneakers however, were the start of the depression that has systematically attempted to attack me all weekend...actually more than all weekend. It began with my date. I had a really nice time and was left feeling scared, stressed out and basically freaked out.

I have been watching Good Will Hunting for the past hour. Robin Williams’ character talks a lot about his wife who died from cancer two years ago and he describes it with such accuracy that I have been crying, trying to hold myself together since I turned it on. I’m depressed, not in the sense that I’m just sitting around crying day in and day out. Depression isn’t really like that. I just feel a heaviness which I have been suppressing for a couple of days, I guess, maybe for a week. I’m not sure, anymore. What I’m sure about is that I have a closet full of new clothes and two new pairs of the same exact sneakers, my favorite sneakers, because I medicated myself with a shopping spree this weekend. Nice, huh? Sometimes Ativan just doesn’t cut it. Actually, neither do clothes. Crying seems to help more than both of those things.

This little snippet of Good Will Hunting has been more helpful to me than anything else has been this weekend. I wish I could watch the entire movie, but my sweet, beautiful little niece just called and invited me over to collect my birthday presents. I just can’t say no to her. She made me laugh and she filled my heart. She and my nephew are the only two people on this earth who can do that now. Chris was the other one. It’s nice to know that love is still there, so strong that it both fills and breaks my heart simultaneously. That’s love. I shared it with Chris and I share it with my niece and nephew, my children.