I cried over laundry

So, I'm 43 years old and when I was 19-ish, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Later on, I was also diagnosed with PTSD, generalized anxiety, and ADHD. So I'm REAL fun at parties. I'm also what Catieosaurus brilliants calls a "Burnt Out Gifted and Talented Submissive Brat with a Praise Kink". Only part of that is relevant in this moment, but the description fits nonetheless.

My mental health has been on a steep decline for about the last 8 years. Without going into all the things that I think contributed to it, I'm in a pretty bad place, and a lot of things have just kind of fallen apart. One of the things that's definitely taken a backseat is laundry.

I have a portable washing machine that I bought several years ago.As much as I thought it would help me to conquer the literal mountains of laundry, it hasn't. Because I don't have a dryer, and the drying rack that's permanently set up in my room (amongst all the laundry I haven't done) can only hold so much. I can cram my washing machine full, but if I don't have space for all this stuff to air dry, it doesn't matter. The more it backs up, the more it stresses me out, and the more it stresses me out, the more it backs up.

Well, after a long and convoluted situation, I now have a dryer. It's super small, so it's only really good for a couple of larger items at a time, or a medium sized load of socks and underwear and stuff, but it fits on my kitchen table, doesn't need external venting, and dries things in a tiny fraction of the time it takes to air dry.

I've done a couple of small loads of laundry today and for the first time since I moved to New York 15 years ago I've been able to clutch a load of clean, warm, soft laundry to my chest, in my own home. And I cried. Such a small, innocuous thing that most people probably wouldn't give much thought to, apart from "Oh, that feels nice." I've been so depressed for so long, I've felt isolated for so long, I've missed home for so long, and in this one moment, I felt safe and cared for, like I was back home with my mom, and not in this city where I still don't know anyone. For a minute, life felt really, really normal and good.

I know that's pitiful and miserable and stupid. But so much of life is pitiful and miserable and stupid. I really needed something to feel not like that, and for it to be such a simple, not at all extraordinary thing like that is almost like a miracle.