I am having a day of the blahs. Even the computer that usually sits on a table waiting for me is currently on my lap as I can’t find the energy to get even that far off the couch. Today I won’t eat. Today I know I won’t get up and continue my healthy lifestyle. I will sit on this couch and watch TV and ignore the millions of things that would be better for me to do.

These days used to be much more common than they seem to be the last month. The last month I have worked hard to do the little things in life that I used to ignore so easily. The laundry, the dishes, the vacuuming; all those things that important for the health and continual ease of my family I have actually been doing.

I worry that even one day on the couch is going to be the start of a pattern.  The first day of the old me; the me that couldn’t find the energy to live but instead focused solely on the easy. Easy being not getting up, not being productive.  Easy to be lazy.

Despite the fact I sit here and write this today and know that I don’t want this pattern to began, I also feel that talons of that laziness trying to flow through my veins. But like the blood that flows so easily, how do I stop it from coming? How do I get up from this couch and began to start a new beginning.

Because while the last weeks of trying to do more, of being more present not only the lives of my children but my own life has been remarkable; the hard part is going to start now. Can I get off the couch and not fall into the loneliness? The laziness? It isn’t hard to sit on this couch, it is hard to get off this couch. Not once, but over and over again.

In the last weeks I haven’t done anything amazing. There is so much more on my list that I want to add to my daily life. Not things that are large or even very flashy, but rather daily little tasks that I think I could add to the equation to make me happier. Not to change for anyone else, but a chance for me to look in the mirror each not and smile.

When you live with depression and live with bipolar disorder one of the first things you deal with is the disappointment. The realization that what comes so easily to others will never come easily to you.  The knowledge that it is difficult to get daily tasks done because there is a living, breathing weight that makes it almost impossible.  And when you do those little things you don’t do them for your own happiness but only because you can’t stand the pity, the look in those you love eyes.  You don’t get up because you have the energy but because you don’t have the energy to deal with anyone else’s disappointment.

I am not interested in running a mile. I have no need in me to learn how to finish a marathon, eat only healthy and low-cal foods, or even have a need to wear my makeup and hair styles each and every day. I have no need to entertain my children each and every moment of their days, nor do I have a need to mow the lawn in the dead of winter.

I only have a interest in being a part of my family each day. I only have an interest in feeling good about myself by doing the things that most others would take for granted.

I don’t take anything for granted. I simply can’t. I know how difficult I am to live with, so I certainly don’t take those who do live with me for granted. I have looked into my checking account and known the reality of losing a job simply because I was sick on the inside rather than the outside, and not taken it for granted. I have been on the couch for days, months at a time so I know that these last three weeks have been absolutely amazing.

Can I sustain it? Can I keep it? Or I am stuck one more time in a life sitting on a couch waiting for the world to come and get me? Because if you think for one moment that I wish to get up with this weight laying on my chest, you’re wrong. But if you think for one moment I want to sit on this couch and give up, you’re wrong.

Where I go from here, whether I will be on the couch tomorrow or moving is almost completely out of my control. But there is one things greater than anything weightly or horrible in this world…hope.