Leaving

I remember thinking the air felt unusually warm for a Kansas March morning. We had my little Focus piled high with necessities and a few small reminders of who we were: a thick Bible that belonged to C’s grandfather and a box full of letters from my dad. C’s artwork fit nicely behind the seats but I had to donate most of my books to make room for about a dozen journals I once passionately scribbled with half-truths and foolish dreams.

The night before, my two closest girlfriends met me at my mom’s and the three of us sat on her back porch for one last time, reminiscing and laughing about those stories we didn’t share with our boyfriends. It was a bittersweet feeling, to be leaving. My friends tried to be cool about it but I’m not sure they understood. There was a visible stinging, somewhat of a “So we’re not enough?” as I tried explaining that although we loved Kansas and would miss everyone terribly, it wasn’t where we needed to be. My mom was the only one who really got it.

Driven by little more than a generous tax return and blind faith, we were setting out to find something we couldn’t even be sure existed.  It wasn’t so much an escape from our wayward roots, although the idea had always been tempting, but really we just wanted to see that elusive castle in the sky. We were looking for home.

For Bean

You laugh

Sound spirals through the room.

A glitter tornado,

Making yesterday's laundry a distant memory

You dance

Body strong; face serene.

Fiery ballerina,

Twirling confidently along the angriest of seas

You sing

It is a song of hope

Unhindered compassion

And I am certain the world can feel this love you possess

You stand

Blessed with my energy

And your father's sweetness

Wise as though you've seen the future and it amused you.

On Depression

People who have never truly dealt with depression tend to chalk it up to mere sadness, which is not totally inaccurate because, for some, depression does manifest itself as sadness but I think a more appropriate generalization would be to describe it as a total disconnect from oneself.

Or better yet: who in the fuck did I wake up as today?

 In my most dramatic of moods I would probably compare it to bathing in razor blades and on that note, anti-depressants could also be comparable to bathing in razor blades except that while I’m doing that I am not feeling a damn thing. That is terrifying and for me a far worse fate. Pain is not always so bad...it, at least, is something.

Of course, I am only speaking from my personal experience with the reality eclipsing disorder called “depression” but it was never about being sad or feeling worthless. It was just emptiness. And when I wasn’t empty and constantly searching for void-fillers I was over-encumbered with them. There was no such thing as neutral or content. There was only crazy, crazier and panic.

 And that was what high school was for me, a silent fury. I had friends and I liked people just fine but I’ll never have a clear memory of those days because I wasn’t completely there (and I mean that in the least cryptic, ‘dear diary’ way possible). By my sophomore year I had tapered off of all medication and did not want to return to that bathtub, so to speak. It worked for a while too. The highs were insanely high and reasonably consistent. I would out party my friends on pure adrenaline while they were rollin’ balls (and still make the honor roll…bitches!). But the lows were pretty ridiculous and I could’ve probably snorted a speedball of ginseng and sex through a fast food straw and still not even have drawn in enough energy to pick up a pen and write about it. But I was pretty adamant about not being on anti-depressants so I decided to suck it up and party on.

Now, I won’t tell you about the time I threw a five pound dumbbell at my stepbrother (oh hush, he was fine…I missed) but I will take you back to the night I busted a melted candle all over the wall. In my defense, I didn’t realize it was melted until there was orange wax covering about 20% of the room.

So, of course after I threw the candle I had to clean it up. I did my research, got out the iron and some old sheets and went to work. A mess like that takes a skilled level of patience. It involves hours of doing the same, repetitive movements. This should have put me in an even more hateful mood but instead I fell into a tranquil rumination. For the first time I allowed myself to step outside of the chaos and look at my manic-depression objectively. I finally (finally!) understood that even though I couldn’t exactly control it, I didn’t have to let it have power over me.

I’ll continue to be honest here and admit that I still struggle with it regularly.  Apart from a mild bout of what they call post-partum depression I have managed to remain medication free and still relatively normal. But I owe everything to that moment of revelation, down on my hands and knees, ironing candle wax off of the carpet. Had it not been for me taking my happiness into my own hands, I’m not sure what kind of example I would be setting for my daughter today.

All My Secrets

I often forget how old I really am. I could attribute this to being a young mother but the truth is for as far back as I can remember I have felt a detachment with my age. My older than most but still young soul usually behaves by keeping me mature and useful but then something happens- maybe I say something inexcusable, my intentions rude or thoughtless-  and I am heartbreakingly reminded that I am a much younger and far less prepared lady than I believe myself to be.

Then, of course, the earth shifts and the clouds harden. The world as I imagine it is never the same. It is always less safe; more unforgiving. I become the rape victim who can’t stop looking over her shoulder; the young child pleading for attention in all the wrong ways- by slamming doors and coloring on the walls; the desperate woman trying to blend further into the background while screaming, “See me. Notice me. Love me.”

In a shockingly exquisite and reverent manner, the layers I cower behind begin melting away (I believe this is called growing). I am no longer the 80 year old sage nor am I the middle aged woman with laugh lines, looking back lovingly on her past and smiling towards her future.

More layers disintegrate and the contented housewife, who emanates confidence and is blessed with a surreal sense of intuitive practicality, has a nervous breakdown. And while she is receiving a Thorazine drip the most ethereal of creatures takes her place. She is ageless. She has mastered the art of stillness. There stands the woman at peace. I am rarely her and yet I am always her right before that last good storm- the one that floods the city and washes it all away, leaving me, naked and defenseless, nerves standing on all ends, blinking and buzzing like a half-lit neon sign outside of a sleazy bar.

Me- the writer that doesn’t write enough because she’s too busy talking herself up (the one saying “that” when she should be saying “who”); the girl who craves everything she doesn’t need and knows not of what she does.

 I am never aware of this girl until I have to be. She is a child dismayed with the world because it isn’t tied up neatly in a small corner of her mind; afraid because she can’t control it; unnerved because people are rarely as interesting as she thinks they are and nobody is ever really who they say they are. She is terrified of meeting one genuine person in this world because she just may tell them all her secrets.

 Lucky she’s good at repairing flood damage.