Drumbeats

The rain is coming down in sheets. I drive, mind either blank or racing, extremes being the obvious choice for comfort zones.

NPR drones, a voice is describing the surface of the earth being like the surface of a drum, showing and broadcasting the turmoil that occurs deep within its core, things like earthquakes and volcanoes and eruptions.

I think of my core erupting, over and over again in twenty-six and a half years, my drum surface struggling to broadcast what's underneath.

A week before the end of camp, we sat in the pine grove, idly chatting before Sunday meeting. My legs stretched out in front of me, tanner than I've ever seen them, despite copious amounts of SPF 30. A sort-of friend asks me, nonchalantly, about the scars on my left thigh. What happened?

I don't blame her for asking. They stand out in sharp relief, white and puckered against the darkened expanse of skin.

The moment stretches to an infinity in my mind. I feel my drum surface caving inward, the volcano of years ago smoldering now. 

I think of days spent only in bed, alternating between crying and sleeping.

I think of hiding in shower stalls, in closets, in empty classrooms. Digging my nails into my palms until bloody half moons appeared, biting my tongue until my mouth tasted of metal, feeling like I was drowning under the lava flow of unwarranted grief.

I think of how I let hunger carve a void into which I placed every emotion I ever felt, one by one.

Anger, sadness, contentment, loneliness, excitement, despair.

My drum's surface, cracked and silent, reverberating nothing. 

Now, though, my tattoos curve over flesh instead of bone. I catch glimpses of myself in mirrors and no longer startle in fear. 

I take vitamins and only cry maybe not that much more often than anyone else.

I still don't sleep, deeply, almost ever. 

The waves of paralyzing, terrifying grief ebb at my sweaty palms and rabbit mind in the dark hours of the night but they retreat with the sunrise.

I name emotions for myself, like flashcards in my mind. This is contentment, this is joy, this is exhaustion, this is frustration, this is fear.

The names are a drumbeat, tentative.

The meals, a drumbeat too. Steady in the background, three times a day, it is so boring I could die. This is gallows humor. This is laughing. This is fun.

Meanwhile, there are meds to pass and charts to write, and in the fall, there are babies to catch and exams to take and it occurs to me that this ebb and flow, the emotions I name to ground my drumming heart into the lava hot core of myself, that this is normality, that anxious and lonely and sad are not just my drumbeats, but everyone's, sometimes.

The moment snaps back and only half a second has passed.

Self-inflicted, I say calmly, with a half smile and an almost apologetic shrug, as if to say, Oh, you know - a little self-mutilation. Haven't we all been there?

And no, we haven't, that's obvious. But in other ways, yes we have.

She gives me a half-smile back and nods.

Someone rings the bell to start.

Oh Camp Arcadia, when we are with you…

* * *

These words have been brewing inside me for weeks, but they have new meaning for me in light of Robin Williams' death. Many, many people know the pain of depression and have felt - and answered - the siren song of suicide. I often quake in the enormity of my fortune that I made it through my bad years with nothing worse than a few scars and a propensity to write long-winded blog posts on the subject. My heart aches for the families of all those who never saw their waves of despair ebb away and leave something brighter in its wake.

Six Months In

I am drenched and dripping in sweat, gasping as I fling myself up from the rumpled, damp sheets, sitting up now with my head on my knees and the room is so quiet, it hums around me and all I hear are my ragged, heaving lungs.  The house was burning down, the stairs were engulfed in flames, I couldn't get out and I was all alone - the fact that all this was a dream settles over me like a heavy blanket that gives no comfort and only feels like a smothering hand, like the walls closing in on my galloping, hummingbird heart.  I lie back down and wriggle closer to his still, sleeping form.  I rest my forehead in between his shoulder blades and listen to him breathe and I love him, and he loves me, but all the love in the world doesn't raise a man who sleeps like the dead just because I had a nightmare.

Three days of the black cloud over my head.  Three days is nothing compared to the months (nay, years) of sickening depression I have endured before, but three days is long enough to remind me of just how god-awful it feels.  To remember what it feels like to rise slowly up out of a half-sleep, look at the wall beside my bed and only have one word come to mind: Fuck.  Because another day has begun. Because looking at myself in the mirror is hateful, because I wish I could shower with my eyes closed so that I wouldn't have to see a single particle of me, because everything feels so pointless, because fuck, this is hard.  And then that night, when I lie in his arms and I tell him how awful this feels and he listens, and I know he cares, because he asks me softly, What can I do?  And I don't know what to tell someone who has never felt this way before.  I don't know how to let someone help me when they cannot tell me, I have been where you are.  I tell him he's already doing it.  He listens.  He holds me close and he cracks quiet jokes until a small smile tugs at the corners of my mouth.  Satisfied, he pushes my hair out of the way and plants a last kiss on my neck before falling promptly to sleep.  I lie awake, counting his breaths, his arm warm around my middle and I think to myself with an ache that threatens to tear me in half, No one ever tells you how to fall in love with someone new.

A few minor changes...

My life. Has changed. So much.

Here are the facts:
1.  On Wednesday mornings, I take a 6 AM bus to NYC, where I work for J. all day, then take a train to NJ to see my therapist at 8 PM at night (God bless this woman for staying late to see me) and then I take a 9:30 train back into the city before returning to J.'s apartment to collapse.
2.  Thursdays, I will be babysitting a little boy for a few hours, puttering around NY, taking care of things, and then taking care of Birdie for her parents' date night starting at 5 PM.
3.  Fridays, I work for Birdie all day and take a bus back to Boston around 7 PM.
4.  Saturdays, I collapse, do laundry, hug my best friend, go grocery shopping, etc.
5.  Sundays, I go to a local horse barn where I shovel shit in exchange for the chance to ride.  I also do this on Mondays and Tuesdays.  I AM THE LUCKIEST GIRL EVER.
6.  Right now, I am camping in the room of this girl I talk about all the time.  Starting in December, though, I'll be living in the apartment upstairs with two roommates (yet to be found, inspected, and approved).
7.  I'm looking for a part-time job in Boston for Sundays-Tuesdays, to help bring in more money.  I've applied to every coffee shop and bookstore I could find, so we'll see what happens there.
8.  I miss my boys terribly.  For the sake of Rupert, his need for more consistency, and the ease of me finding a place to live, he is living at Alix's dad's house for now.  I have shed more than a few tears about this, because he was (and is) the light of my life and not snuggling up with him every night has made a part of me die.  In fact, I'm tearing up right now just writing this.  But I know he's in a better place right now, this is temporary, and yes.  Okay.  It's better.  I know it is.  But oh, I miss him.
9.  Until I move upstairs, Tucker is staying with my brother so as not to continue to overcrowd H.'s apartment with warm bodies.  So I'll be counting down the days until December 1st when I can begin our staring contests again.  (He usually wins.  But I feed him.  So technically, as the wielder of all things edible, I WIN.)



The gory deets:

Living with Birdie's family three days a week is going surprisingly well.  We genuinely get along, we have fun together, and it's not awkward.  (This is remarkable.  I am the queen of awkward.  I could make a coffee table feel uncomfortable, if I tried.)

I am eating.  More.  Every day.  It's hard.  I am trying.  The end.

I applied to Yale.  I wrote a damn good essay (if I do say so myself), and the office of admissions is being very understanding about the lateness of two of my letters of recommendation due to the snow/ice storm that took out power in the town from which two of the letters are coming.

Last week, when H. was helping me pack, it was quite honestly, the most exhausting 72 hours of my life, between packing up all of Alix's stuff to put in storage, going to Boston to go job/apt hunting, coming back, packing up all of my stuff, loading a moving van, driving to Boston, unloading the van into a storage unit, and then driving me and H. and my essentials to her apartment.  ANYWAY - we were packing.  We were tired.  So, we decided to get coffee.  Then, we decided coffee was boring.  So, we added Bailey's.  Irish coffees make packing A LOT more interesting.  Please see below:

In case you can't read: (H) AIR (Y) Conditioner (and golf clubs)

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The last time I picked up a golf club was...oh wait, never.  So yeah.  Around 3 AM, everything was in boxes, labeled (although you can only imagine how much more fun the labels got as the hours swung by), and organized into piles for van vs. car.  A couple hours later and we were up, bumping furniture down three flights of stairs and soon on our way to Beantown.

I was so tired when we got there that I almost fell asleep on the floor.  Of the living room.  With the lights on.

Today, I took a walk in Riverside Park, just for fun.  Just because I wanted to.  Because I had enough energy to do so.  Because the sunshine felt nice, and I had nothing else to do, and I was happy.

Further gory deets, though: I am still swinging like a monkey on a tree between moods.  Definitely hanging out in the depressed section these days, for way longer than I have been in a good long while.  I'm hoping that my medication changes will help, as will all these other huge life alterations that were all done in the name of saving my sanity (even if temporarily, it's disrupting it completely).  Eventually, I will even out.  And so will my life.  And life will go on.  And all that stuff that they say, but it's true, and it bears repeating.

Holding this close to my heart tonight, and trying like hell to believe it:
You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.

What This Blog is Not

Who wants their blog to be depressing?  Come on, let's see a show of hands!   No, really, no one?  Shocker.  Me neither.  Problem is...I've been really depressed lately.  Like, can't-get-out-of-bed-without-help kind of depressed.  Like sitting-in-the-shower-for-an-hour kind of depressed.  But the best advice I've gotten (yay for my therapist!) is that - and I swear I have heard this countless times and yet I need to hear this a gazillion more times before it gets through my thick, thick skull - the best thing to do when you're depressed and all you want to do is lay in bed all day is to go through the motions.  Get up.  Shower.  Put on clothes.  Go to work.  Do it all, even if you're miserable while you're doing it.  Because it's only going to be a hell of a lot more miserable, lying in bed all day crying.

So.  Going through the motions also equals writing, even when I don't feel like it, because writing is as therapeutic for me as is well, going to therapy.  I've been trying for days to think of something to write about that does not turn my blog into a Debbie Downer, even if that's how I feel, so here are a few happy things.

1.  I wrote a short essay for my Yale application today about my volunteering experience.  I was (and am) proud of the essay, and it made me think and remember and be grateful for the two years I spent volunteering at the Northampton Interfaith Homeless Shelter.  My life was changed by the experience, and I am grateful that I had the chance to be a part of so many lives even in such little ways as playing cards, serving dinner, and hearing the guests' stories.  I will always remember them.
2.  I got to see my amazing mother this past weekend.  She listened to me, she talked with me, she helped me clean, she helped me pack, she took care of Rupert - she was my wonderful, sweet, supportive, loving mama.  I am lucky to have her and I am grateful every day for her.
3.  My mom and I had the following conversation after I returned from the pharmacy:

Me: What does it mean if a guy pharmacist tells me he likes my scarf?  Does it mean he's hitting on me, or he's gay?
My mother: I think it means he likes your scarf.

Touche, mom.

4.  I got to ride a horse on Monday for the first time in a couple of years.  Someday soon I'll write a post about how much riding means to me and how excited I am that it's back in my life.  Suffice to say now, settling into the saddle on Elvis's back felt like coming home.

There are big changes going on in my life right now.  Some good, some not so good.  But change, whether I like it or not, is inevitable and it's happening and there's nothing I can do about it.  So I'm just trying to hang on for the ride and go through the motions.  And limit my shower time to less than twenty minutes.

The Other Side

I half-made oatmeal cookies tonight.  That is, I mixed all the ingredients, put one batch in the oven, took them out fifteen minutes later, and completely lost interest in finishing the process.  I stood in our tiny kitchen, feeling slightly dazed and foggy, wondering vaguely why I had even thought to do something as ridiculous as making cookies that I don't want to eat, Alix doesn't want to eat, and that will inevitably go stale over the next two weeks.  Lethargically, I swiped at the counter with a sponge and clumsily washed the spatula.  As I put it on the drying rack behind me without looking, it knocked over a glass that shattered all over the floor.  I promptly burst into tears.
It was a glass.  It was a glass that Alix and I bought in a set from Etsy in what feels like an alternate life.
As I started to pick up the thick green glass shards, I did so with questionable carelessness.  Did I want to hurt myself?  Why wasn't I doing the responsible thing, picking up the shards with a paper towel and then bustling out the vacuum cleaner to finish the job properly?
Why was I sitting on the floor, collecting glass shards in my tightly clenched fists, choking over my own tears?
Because the other shoe has dropped.
This is the other side.
This is where all the running, running, running in the world cannot, will not, ever, get you out of the hole that depression digs for you.
This is the other half of me.
My diagnosis.
My label.
If you are me, this is the only side you see.
Still, I dutifully swallow my pills, ignoring the haunted, bloodshot eyes staring back at me in the speckled bathroom mirror under the fluorescent bulbs.
This too shall pass, I tell myself.  Yeah, well, now would be nice, I say back.
Here I am again.
Waiting.