I have every other Friday off from the day job and typically, I get up around 7 and go right to work on writing or writing-related things. I have 972,648 things I could be doing but this morning I took a mental health day. It was sorely needed–the blood tests revealed that it’s not an easy solution of adjusting my thyroid meds and my depression is that I’m just not coping with life at the moment–so I have a lot of work ahead of me. Hard decisions and changes that have to be made. But I can’t make those while I’m feeling overwhelmed and fragile so I set them aside. Instead, I lazed around in bed until 8:30 reading. I got up, took a shower, and puttered around the house.
Doing chores didn’t feel like an insurmountable task, so I loaded and ran the dishwasher, put a couple of loads of laundry in, and prepped some healthy snacks and breakfasts for the next week. I put vitamins in little baggies, because I’m always forgetting to take magnesium, which is not good, because I’m chronically low and that contributes to depression and anxiety as well. For once I felt like I wasn’t rushed or frantic and it felt good to be accomplishing things without a sense of impending doom and panic.
During my puttering, I missed the SCOTUS decision, which makes me a little sad. But I am too happy about the verdict to let it get to me and the tears are mostly a bone-deep sense of relief and validation. Partly for myself, because life is plenty strange and complicated without the world telling you that your feelings are invalid. There’s enough bi-erasure out there and knowing that I sat in a weird limbo between having rights and not having them made it so much worse. It’s a relief to know that I, as a human being, can marry whomever I choose. And yes, I’m married to a man, and yes, I’d like it to stay that way until we’re dead, but there’s no guarantees of anything and it’s an incredible sense of relief to know that no matter what happens, I’m equal to anyone.
But my joy and tears are also for all of my friends. For the ones who are planning a wedding in Pennsylvania because Michigan wouldn’t allow them to get married here. For all of the couples who’ve been waiting to plan the rest of their life until they knew if they had rights or not. For everyone in the country, who will benefit from this ruling. Yes, even the haters who are convinced their God will send plagues of locusts and had vowed to set themselves on fire will benefit. We all benefit.
My happiness is for my characters too, because although they are in my head and on the page, it doesn’t make them any less real. Right now Stephen and Russ are celebrating and that thrills me too.
There’s still a hell of a lot to be done. Both in the wider world and in my own life, but for today, I think I’ll set all of that aside and just be happy. I’ll read and putter and celebrate with friends and really, who could ask for a better mental health day than that?