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Postpartum depression
It's one-twenty in the morning and I shouldn't be writing this, my brain is too tired ... but I need to cover up the previous entry. See, I've learned that the longer I leave an entry "on the top of the stack," the more email trickles in about it - and while I greatly appreciate the emails that have arrived in the nine or so hours since I last posted, I don't need any more on that entry.
You see, I didn't mean to inspire sympathy or worry or concern ... although I'm thrilled to have friends who get concerned ... I was just venting, which is what I do here. And I'm fine. Honest.
I got five entreaties to cheer up and get a grip, two which said the same but with the emphasis reversed, two messages from people I listed as Friends in the Area saying, "You know, if you'd just contact us, we'd do something with you" - true, and mea culpa - and one from a person I don't even feel like I know well enough yet to consider a Friend in the Area, whom I'd like to see more of.
I have that depression I always get when finishing up a piece of writing. This was a major piece, so it follows that the depression has lasted several days; for short stories, it usually goes away within hours. The best cure I know for it is to start writing something new.
However, tonight I put on makeup and made my hair all poofy and went to Legal Sea Foods with Nonelvis and had a nice meal and then we went to see Dogma. And all this cheered me up immensely. (You can probably tell, just from the increase in rationality as compared to earlier today.)
The cause of the depression is simple: When I finish writing something - say, for about ten minutes - it's the greatest thing in the world, and I want everyone to see it.
People actually do see it, and as their reports trickle in, they tell me what I am already realizing by that point: I have not written the greatest thing in the world. I may have written something pretty good - you see, I'm not saying I write dreck - but it is never as good as I want it to be, and the creation is never as joyous once the glow wears off.
This is why I call it "postpartum depression." It reminds me of my old joke: Having a baby is great; the problem is that then you have to raise it.
I think I'd rather just go get pregnant again. I'd make a bad mother.
© Columbine
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By the by, if you're presently reading Quarter Moon, don't think any of this means you can get away without telling me what you thought of it, y'hear?
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