charley horse

some people describe their depression like a veil that fogs their view. living in shadows and blurry lines, confused and dazed- everything unclear. or existing in a movie you can’t pause or fast-forward or leave the theatre for a better show.

for me depression has always been more like a hangnail, a headache or a charley horse. a pain invisible and not incapacitating but always present; nagging me and hungry for attention. i used to try and starve the beast. i thought if i ignored it, it would go away or at least fade… at so many parties in college i remember leaning against walls to hold me from collapse, gripping a plastic cup brimming with beer, my fingers so taut they often cramped from the tension of holding on… always holding on… i would smile and laugh but one hand or shoulder or elbow was always touching that wall. i couldn’t move. i remember feeling if i let go I would fall… down, down, down.

i was always a good actress. i could step out center stage and shake things up! people cheered and rushed to greet my arrival, but no one really knew how much i paid for each performance. each hour of stardom cost me many more in retreat, deep in the dark, silent and alone in my room, gently licking wounds i couldn’t see and didn’t know how i got them. sometimes my roommates thought i wasn't even home… so quiet i became in my recuperation.

i learned later on in college, if i gave in, gave myself a metered amount of time to wallow and then forced myself back in the game, i could more effortlessly turn on that light that glowed, attracting people to me like moths, warming hearts and charming, always charming. sadly, i never understood that people liked this person standing in front of them; i only thought of turning out a convincing performance. and so, i missed out on some real relationships, some real feelings and genuine experiences because i was always living behind the character. hiding the charley horse that pinched in my chest.

i can still play through the pain, though i want to less and less. it is a process learning how much you can reveal and still hold on to yourself, learning how to balance what is inside and what needs to be on display in a range of practical circumstances. but you eventually learn, like with everything, sometimes you succeed and sometimes you fail. funny enough, most people pay more attention to the victories than the defeats. small mercies, bless them…

in real life there are no medals awarded for vaulting with a broken foot. we soldier on because that is all we can do.

land lines

like so many of us now, i am almost never without my smartphone in hand. utterly dependent on its miracles, i use it for constant sms, photos, surfing, emailing and tweeting. with each notification ding, i think about how very seldom my phone actually rings. how rarely i use my phone for actually talking to anyone.

the telephone has always been my modus operandi. i remember first learning to use the telephone in my parent’s house. i was still so small that i needed to push a dinette chair to stand on to reach the phone mounted on the kitchen wall, how my fingers trembled with excitement that i was finally, oh finally, deemed old enough to learn to spin that rotary dial, be instructed in the polite ways of telephone calling and that if i was lucky, to be able to answer the phone when it rang through the house.

the magic the telephone held for me! i could summon my mormor when i wanted her and not be forced to wait for her call, anxiously hoping my mother would pass the receiver to my ear. i could call my friends and feel the electric current of their parents’ approval when i enacted my practiced politesse. my manners may not have been up to par for my own mother, but my friends’ parents were charmed. i felt that wave of needed affection right through the long curly cord into my very bones.

when i was a teenager, my mother complained bitterly that i tied up the lines with my marathon talks with girlfriends. in the days before call-waiting and voicemail, my pragmatic mormor suggested i have my own line. while my mother demurred, my mormor acted. for my fifteenth birthday i received a gorgeous modern princess phone and best of all my own line. months later i grabbed the newly delivered phone book to look up my own entry. when it wasn’t there, listed with my step-father, i was disappointed. as i flipped to the names of my mother’s family. i smiled widely to myself when i discovered my name listed just above my mormor. publishing me with my real name and not his, was a quiet, public rebuke to my step-father for not, in her mind at least, sufficiently shielding me from the cold malevolence of my mother. my name was printed without address but with dots leading to my very own number. seeing my name in that phonebook, i felt that i was, that i existed, that i mattered…above all, that i could be found.

that phone was literally my life line. while not as doggedly dependent on it the way we are now, i knew it was there and that it was mine to reach out to whomever i chose, whenever i chose. like Salinger’s Muriel, i was a girl for whom a ringing phone held absolutely nothing. i wasn’t preoccupied with worries of invitations. i was mostly comforted to know i had my very own conduit to a world outside of home. like my own bat-line, my princess phone was how i signaled for help when i needed to escape the oppressive darkness that lurked in the corners of my parent’s house. while ever-present sunshine poured through south-facing window panes, bathing the ashen blonde wood in bright light, i often tripped over the shadows of unhappiness that pervaded beyond the reach of the sun’s rays and lapped at my feet like a needy dog. my phone was my way out of the blinding dark.

in college, i took that phone and installed it on the night table next to my bed. by then i also had an answering machine. like little beeping presents, messages blinked with urgency when i came home from class, pressing play to hear the sometimes jubilant or sometimes plaintive voices of my friends, more often than not they were just flat demands to return missed calls but the delight of blinking red lights always held just a moment of anticipatory surprise.   

that time has ceased for me and really, for us all. caller id, texting and the permeation of 4G networks have eroded our ability to be unavailable or unreachable for much more than an hour. my phone still lays on my nightstand at night, ever vigilant in case of emergency or just simply on alert in case an inside joke appears in my mind before sleep and simply must be messaged to a conspiring friend. the wonder of mobility and portability have ironically allowed me to be always at home, except now, in the home I have created in my grown-up space, and that home is everywhere and anywhere at once.

mixed bag

as i mentioned in my last post, i am one of those people that loves the holiday season. having said that, the holidays are not always the easiest time of year for everyone. for some, there is a special joy in the air and an eagerness to celebrate; still for others the decorations, songs and sounds and even the smells of christmas fill us with uneasy sense of dread, guilt and conflicted emotions. we were told we were supposed to enjoy and celebrate, yet our memories are void of that experience.

as much as i love the holidays, mine were not always filled with joy and good tidings. some years were sad and lonely, others made tense with family fights or missing members. sometimes while walking around my neighborhood enjoying the lights and bustle of activity, i am hit by a whiff of something that evokes a memory of someone or something i loved and lost. my lightness of heart suddenly crashed by grief, leaving me wounded and tender. these are strong feeling at this time of year.

it's not just about celebrating the holidays, it is also about the completion of a calendar year and reflecting back on this one and the others before this. maybe we worry about what we accomplished (or didn't), maybe we are missing a parent, family member or a friend we lost; maybe our own relationships or marriages are strained by the pressure of the holidays. it is a complicated time and often filled with intense memories and longings for what was or what we thought should be.

many of us are torn between what we want and what is expected. many of us are torn between families and their wants and demands. some of us have fantasies of our ideal holiday only to be let down by the reality of what they actually present.

remembering that these days are just a few in a many that make up our life allows some perspective. we can get through this. remembering what is worth cherishing and letting go of what hurts allows us to shape the holidays we want to have. allow yourself to feel, but not to dwell...take what you like and release what you don't. allow yourself to love...love yourself and others...that is really what this time of year is about. not creating perfection but celebrating what is good and what can be better.