Life is such a weird journey, don't you think? I'm just sitting here at my kitchen table (I call it my "kitchen table" but really it's in my living room. It's where I eat and study, and even-- from time to time-- craft. It's my dining table, it's my desk. But when I name this table in my head, I always think of my childhood kitchen table, which was literally in the kitchen, where so many important family meals happened, so many breakfasts with little pastries cut up to share, so many holiday meals and every day meals. But I'm getting off track.) I'm sitting here at my table, getting ready to start my day, and doing a little morning meditation with Robin Hallet I'm thinking about how badly I felt yesterday. How low down I was, how absolutely sure I felt in that moment that life was just completely awful and I was never going to feel good again. How exhausted.
And, depression IS exhausting. That's the thing. I think that even when we have an awareness that this feeling isn't going to last forever, it's the exhaustion of feeling that way, *in that moment* that feels so completely and overwhelmingly terrible, that we just want it all to end. It feels like, in that moment of sitting in the darkness of our mind, that absolutely anything would be better than this. We are thinking, "Whatever comes in the afterlife, I'll take it over this feeling I am having right now."
And then, today, it's a little bit different. A little bit better. In fact, for most of yesterday, it was a lot better. After I let myself lay around on the couch and wallow in it for a few hours, I got up (because I had to go to work) and I didn't feel so bad anymore. I actually caught myself genuinely smiling at people during my shift. I caught myself stopping to just feel the breeze on my skin at dusk. I felt thankful that I get to have a job that takes me outside. Let me say that again: I felt thankful. In the morning yesterday, when I was feeling so terrible, I could not imagine feeling thankful, because I was so engulfed in feeling bad. The bad feeling overwhelms the mind to the point that you can't imagine ever feeling good again, and that's why depression steals so many lives.
But, I am determined not to let this thing get me. I am feeling strong today, not sad. I am feeling- if not ready to take on the world- at least a bit more myself. And I am writing this here in case anyone else is in the darkness today, and feels like nothing is ever going to feel okay again. It will. I promise.
If you are not familiar with the online project Stay Here with me, you should know that it is a site that offers online support for depression and suicidality. Maybe they have something there to offer you. All I am thinking today is the line at the end of the Madness Vase, where Andrea Gibson says, "Live, live, live."
I have that line on a poster that I bought when I went to go see Andrea perform last year. It hangs in my bedroom. At the time that I bought the poster, I wasn't familiar with the poem, but I knew that seeing those words every day might be helpful sometimes.
This morning while I sat here writing, a humming bird flew up to my aloe plant outside my window and hung out for a bit trying to get a drink from her flowers. I thought about how I might get a hummingbird feeder and hang it there, near the tree, for when the flowers are all fallen. I like having the birds visit outside my window. Just a few weeks into spring and the flowers are already falling, they don't last long around here. I feel like making plans is a good sign, meaning that I want to keep on sticking around.
**I'm amazed at how much shame still comes up when I write about depression. But for so many years I suffered in silence because of that shame voice being so loud. I'm not going to do that anymore. If my writing, my voice, can help one person feel less alone, then I have done my job. This post is a little scattered, a little all-over-the-place, but that's where my brain is today. I've got to go do some homework (which ironically, I have to leave the house in order to do.) So it's time to take a shower and go to the place where I do that. Blessings on your day. <3
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