What’s wrong?

I don’t know. I just know I feel like I’m walking around interfacing with my life from behind plastic sheeting, like I’m a bit of furniture that got covered up during a remodel.

What’s wrong?

I don’t know. The constant low- to medium- grade anxiety about the state of the country, the state of the world, this clown car of a government, maybe. The fact that we are currently all at the mercy of spectacularly stupid and/or mendacious people who delight in the bonfire they’re making of democracy, human decency, common sense, logic, science, etc.

What’s wrong?

I don’t know. Maybe it’s the quickening degradation of my physical abilities, my strength, my ability to get up from a chair without a grunt, the dry, crepey texture that has taken over my skin, the questionable cholesterol, that quiet but pervasive sense of waiting for the shoe to drop—the thing that begins the transition of my mostly functional physical and mental life to less functional. In other words, waiting for the cancer, the accident, the clumsy tumble, the aneurysm, what have you.

What’s wrong?

I don’t know. Maybe it’s perimenopausal hormonal bullshit. The wild swings from depression to rage to apathy seem to indicate it could be something like that. Either that or the aforementioned functionality of my mental state is degrading faster than I thought.

What’s wrong?

I don’t know. Maybe I need a new antidepressant. Or something.

What’s wrong?

Might be the the inevitable sadness that waits for us, my family and I. I can’t really say more about it. But we know it’s coming and the whole world of after will be a different one than the one we’re in now.

What’s wrong?

Definitely the fact that I can’t seem to muster up enough gratitude to pull myself out from under the plastic sheeting. That I know I enjoy just about every privilege a middle-age white lady can have, yet here I am. Fucking sad. If I were someone else observing me right now, I’d say, “Get over yourself, you self-absorbed idiot. There are people in the world with real problems.”

What’s wrong?

Not really sure, but it might have something to do with the fact that I’ve lost the desire to do almost everything that I used to enjoy. Writing, travel, sex, music, reading, going out in the city to get delightfully lost, with the hope of stumbling across a bit of serendipity that is the beginning of a great story. I still seem pretty desirous of pasta though. So, that’s remained consistent.

What’s wrong?

Maybe constant low-key worry that I am not being a good partner to my husband or a good friend to anyone, that I’m disappointing, boring or otherwise letting down everyone I care about.

What’s wrong?

Definitely my reluctance to plan anything—to give myself anything to look forward to. Because there’s a chance that it’ll be undermined, canceled or ruined by anything from political forces beyond my control or inevitable life events to unintentional self-sabotage (ie, aforementioned mood swings).

What’s wrong?

I wrote this thing to try to identify and organize what is wrong. So, now what? Do I post it and display myself to be the self-absorbed navel gazer that I am? Or do I just let it simmer (or fester) in the cloud like so many of my never-to-be-completed writing projects? At any rate, my myriad petty, real and normal issues are all in a neat list now. So, that’s cool.

Okay, so, what’s right?

Many things. So many things that it should be enough. And likely sometime in a few days or so, it will all be enough again for a while. But this list will still exist—just feel less insurmountable and inevitable for a bit.

And repeat.