I've only written four posts for this blog, and I'm already falling into my old bad habits. I keep starting posts then losing steam and never finishing. And it's because I really only feel passionate about what I'm writing when I'm really, really depressed. So then my blog isn't even fun to read because it's just me complaining!
Whatever. It's not like I'm getting paid for this.
I did a lot of things over the past week. Matt and I drove back and forth to Salt Lake several times, we hung out with family, we went to concerts and movies. I woke up early, got out of bed, did chores, did my make-up, basically did the normal people things I'm not used to doing.
And Monday night, I crashed.
Matt had all these big plans when I got home from work, but I just got home and laid down on the bed and cried. Not like, normal crying, like panic attack, hyperventilating crying. And it was the third time I cried that day. We'd gone and seen La La Land earlier and I cried during the movie because it felt so real and I cried after the movie because it felt so terrible.
So I was already feeling pretty down. And then after work I was so exhausted and I was mad at myself for feeling exhausted, so Matt and I got into bed and watched Captain America: Civil War. And of course I cried again. Four distinct times in one day might be a record.
The worst part about feeling this way isn't knowing that I'm failing myself, it's knowing that I'm failing Matt. He didn't sign up for a loser wife who wakes up at noon on her day off and then takes a nap at 6 because she's just so tired. And who considers taking a bath as her "productive thing" for the day.
A secondary worst part is thinking that maybe you are just a lazy, entitled Millennial after all.
Oh, and then, on top of all this, Carrie Fisher dies. (Which was the first thing Matt told me when I woke up yesterday.)
Most of the celebrities who died this year didn't really have unfinished work, I think. Garry Marshall had already done Pretty Woman and the Princess Diaries. David Bowie had already finished his new album. Alan Rickman was done with Harry Potter. Prince had made that guest appearance on New Girl.
But Carrie. I still needed her to be Leia. She wasn't done.
Leia is a great heroine. We all know this. I don't need to spend time talking about how strong and scrappy she was, how she always took charge when Luke couldn't hack it, how she got on that speeder and left him behind, all while staying smart and sexy.
But I think Carrie is a great heroine too.
Yeah, she was a drug addict. Yeah, she had at least one affair with a married man. Yeah, her dad was also a drug addict who left her mom for Elizabeth Taylor. Yeah, she was pretty imperfect and probably made a lot of really stupid mistakes. But she was smart. And she was funny. And she cared about people.
And she never stopped trying.
She was a manic, bi-polar depressive with a history of drug addiction and alcoholism and one defining film role when she was 19, but she was also known to light up the room with her vivid personality and sharp wit. She was an advocate for mental health but didn't use her own mental illnesses to explain her behavior. I feel like she made the most of her life and never apologized for who she was.
I want to be like that.
I'm not gonna do drugs or sleep with Harrison Ford, but I'm going to keep trying. Even when it seems impossible. Even when walking on the treadmill for ten minutes seems like a waste of time, I'm going to make myself do it because it's better than walking on the treadmill for no minutes. Even when I wake up feeling like the worst person in the entire world and a disgrace to my family and my community, I'm going to get up anyway because if Carrie embarrassing herself during a live show because her medicine was wonky and she couldn't even speak, I can survive another day of Utah winter (fingers crossed).
She's our princess, she's our general, she was an unstoppable force, and I wish she wasn't gone.
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