The Journey Through Hell, Day One: Charting the Course

     Hi, I'm Susy, and I'm in Depression.
   
     I'm not here to explain Depression, besides who can. I'm just here to keep myself tethered to something. Maybe someone out there will benefit from whatever comes out of the deathtrap that is my consciousness these days and maybe not, but I'm pretty sure I will gain something from it. I've had all manner of these "fits"--Edward Gorey fans will delight in the "Gashly Irony" of that one--but this one seems to be the worse one in nearly two decades. But that one resulted in the mystery series, so there's that.

     Here are the things that I know: Alzheimer's is on my tail and gaining, something (TIA or seizure) happened to me two weeks ago, I have two teenagers, I have many dogs and a puppy, it's been a long winter. That's all I got. It's not much, but it's mine.

     Everybody's cracked. I had this conversation several weeks ago when my son and I were traveling to a seminar for emergency response volunteers. If this summer is anything like the last (Waldo Canyon fire), then we'll be needing to move some horsies and doggies around these parts. So we're on the road and we come across a person I know in passing, literally. In a former life, this person was a techie wizard; in this one, he walks along the road, carefully regarding the cracks of the sidewalk. I waved and told my son the story as I knew it. I, too, was conflicted about sidewalk cracks when I was a kid. I feared the back-breaking they could cause, but knew that without them weeds and ants wouldn't stand a chance. "The job he's doing today is just as important as his old, acceptable job," I told my boy. He's saving us every day. Somebody has to hold down the cracks.

     We are all fucked in one manner or another. Sometimes you can see it, like the woman in my husband's hometown who only bought tuna tins at the grocery store and always walked with one arm over her head. Or there's the gentleman my writer pal Keri used to see outside the library, sitting on the steps, calmly eating lime Jell-O from a pith helmet. But most of us hide it or are ashamed of it and won't let the weird bleed through the rest of our veneer. There have been times when I've let it out that made me feel awesome, and other times that sent me into hiding for weeks. There's an art to being 100% YOU.

     This past weekend I let some real friends in on my plight and as we talked it through, we came up with a Step One: Situate the day in a way that is workable for whatever comes up, and do not let in the things that cause stress. In my case, that means murdering the DVR timer for my three-hour morning Progressive talk show, storing the dogs in a peace-keeping manner, and letting those around me know that, at the moment, I'm not available for every scrap of bullshit in their heads. If this bears fruit, we'll pitch out the next stepping stone.

     I've been a sponge forever. I tend to suck up people's pain, sorrow, angst because I'm either nosy or empathetic--it's your call. At this moment in my life, the sponge is satiated, overflowing, leaking, and dripping all over my life. I've screwed myself into a spot of territory too tiny for the willowy of posts to fit into. My purview is microscopic. I read all of life into a misplaced cup, a surprise pile of dog shit, or the method in which a door is shut. I've drawn a trap around myself and pulled up the cord.

     I lack expansiveness of the sort that frees you. IT goes on forever and YOU are a tiny speck of absolutely nothing. No shoulders for burdens that are not your own and no billowing sleeves to attach all your feeling to. I enjoyed my time, during the election cycle, as being in the 100,000. There were that number of us who emailed, tweeted, and forwarded everything that came under our noses from the likes of: Emily's List, People for the American Way, MoveOn, OFA, Union of Concerned Scientists, Sierra Club, Ultraviolet, Act Blue, and on and on. We got some good legislation passed and some bad stuff axed. We won many battles, the biggest of which happened on November 6th. That was powerful, exhausting, and fun. And then it was over.

     But, in the words of the prophet Steve Martin, I also need to get small. I have to slow down, pull away from the long-angle lens, and sweep my own doorstep. I need to stop staring at screens when I need to know what I feel and what to feel about. Maybe if I start looking out the windows instead, I can gradually come to the point where I can open the door and step through it. I've always helped this community since I joined it in 1995. And while I've never stopped the good works, I have forgotten the true path to myself. Sometimes I don't exercise, not because I'm lazy, but because it's noisy and fast. And I'm happiest with other people, talking and caring and helping them--feeling useful and necessary--but I must have time to be with my own best company, me.

     So what does all that random, nearly stream-of-consciousness mess tell me? It's a balancing act. Big must learn to dance with small and loud has to make friends with calm. Sometimes I want to be Katherine Hepburn's house in State of the Union when all the kids are packing up care packages for the soldiers, other times I want to be the car at the edge of the parking lot in the middle of nothing. "It has been my experience," as Katherine was known to say, that with age we pare down the list of acceptable distractions. Some things just don't deserve our attention. Other beloved past past-times no longer suit us or we realize we no longer suit them. I don't know if I'll write another novel-length work because it takes every moment of your life and psyche for two years to do it right. I have just twice those number of years left with my kids at home. Reality closes in with a vengeance.

     I've noticed that the older folks in my old hometown, maybe in yours too, cut down the foliage adjacent to their homes. They say it's for security, but I'm not so sure. The one thing I do know is that when you go back to a palette so altered, it jars you to the core. Suddenly childhood things resemble childhood artwork, all over-exaggerated and at severe angles. The view isn't to the azalea bushes, it's long enough to see clear through to your own death.

     Maybe what we need is to feel hugged in the midst of a huge, calming void. We're that old farmhouse off the state highway down in the river valley, land spread out between mountain ranges, sitting peacefully there under our five cottonwood trees. Let the winds howl and roar, we have shelter here. Maybe the planet will go on being ignored by the plutocracy, but we can slowly radiate in a community garden until the game's over.

     A dear friend from long ago gave me a card once which read: "Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light." And while the traffic rushes by and the breezes swoop down, maybe the only sane one among us is out there quietly holding down the cracks.