Bad Dreams, But Good News

Last night, I swam through a body of water that was haunted by the ghost of a Victorian-era girl that was drowned by her guardian when she refused to be his lover, and the ghosts of subsequent girls that this man tried to take on as his ward-with-benefits with deadly results. Very Sweeny Todd feeling, very Guillermo Del Toro in the look of the dream. And that was after the portion of the dream where I slept with my former roommate, an overweight and unattractive man that thought if he paid for things, I would love him. I still have no idea why I slept with him in my dream, because it sure as shit never happened in real life, and even in the dream, I felt horrible, in fact pressured, into it. After swimming through the watery graves of decaying murdered girls, while I was naked (something that seems to be coming up a lot lately), I ended up in a creek that was much more shallow and I was terrified to touch its bed because I thought I'd be scraping through bones. I let the current take me a bit further, and stopped in a spot with smoother sand while Old Roommate picked the fragments of bodies and waterlogged Victorian lace off my crouched and naked figure. That was more than enough of a reason to wake the hell up! (And the sex was bad, too.)

And then I checked Facebook. So many friends and family members absolutely ecstatic about the Supreme Court ruling on ending the ban on gay marriage that it's nearly impossible not to feel some of their joy rub off on me. It's gratifying to know that as of today, I no longer live in a country that legally defines love for its citizens by saying who can commit and have it recognized by any governing body in the union and who can't. As a straight ally, it feels glorious to know that my friends and my relatives that have been in committed relationships for years and have children and work just as hard to keep their marriages going as any straight couple you'd ever meet are being recognized as the people that they are... people! People that have just as much of a right to declare their love as anyone else.

And, news from my mom, family friends of ours are celebrating the birth of twin girls! My mom and this family's matriach have been friends since high school and have lived near each other in three different states. The daughter, who is a few years older than me, has three kids from her first marriage, a marriage that was disasterous on so many levels. She remarried the sweetest guy, who included her kids in their ceremony and actually had vows for each one of the three, giving them special necklaces as he promised to be there for them. Their girls, Noelle and Nora, were born three weeks early this morning, a little under weight and one needing oxygen, but otherwise healthy and ready to go, fully cooked and no longer gooey in the middle!

With depression, there are times that hearing the good news of others feels like I'm in hell and everyone else gets to have cupcakes. It's difficult to be genuinely happy for people that are important to me because I am so far removed from feeling happiness myself. Not today. Today, there is so much good news surrouding me that I will have no trouble feeling the positive stick. Believe it or not, but these good days are just as much a part of depression as the bad days, and it can be an arduous task finding the good, but it is so worth it.