The fog is difficult to navigate. The fear is always just behind me, at the ready. I let it know that I know it’s there, and then, I try to go about my business.
I’ve become the one who writes things down, posts slips of paper ripped from magazines on her bathroom cabinet, scrawls important words on her left hand so as not to forget them. I sheepishly buy magnets with “inspirational” quotes. I take glue sticks to the backs of images that make me pause, paste them in an old journal. I am looking for images that make me remember there is beauty in this world, if you go looking for it.
I see the beauty in my daughters. They are proof of it. But they are not always with me. And I don’t want their purpose in life to be my beauty. They have lives to live, and I want them to live wide and strong and bold, without looking over their shoulders, always worried to see how I will react.
I still can’t go to the supermarket. Maybe at night, when the bread aisle really clears out. The tiny organic co-op, a little better, although I hid in the juice aisle while a kind woman I know checked out and took her daughter with her.
It’s a small town.
I was not ready. Simple as that. But I needed some food.
I don’t wish to be tedious. There is always this wish of mine, to not bore you with the tales. I am savvy enough to know that the specific tales themselves are anything but boring, but I am not sure how they will unfold here.
There is change at work, in this heart and mind and soul.
Balance is hard to come by.
I did as much as I could today, and then, all at once, it was clear I had done too much. So I crawled under three layers of blankets, and passed out asleep.
When I awoke, I saw that the sun had gone down. The blankets were weighty. I felt safe, for a moment. Maybe two moments.
Then the “real” world began to creep in, began to tug at me. We need you we need you we need you, get up get up get up so much to do, so much you are not doing, lazy shit.
I stayed put, under my covers. I breathed deeply. I let the fear have its moment, and then I let it go, scurrying off to some other corner of the old house.
It will take time. I don’t know what will happen. I am not well. This is a true statement, all melodrama stripped away.
It is an illness as genuine as diabetes, as chronic as heart disease. There’s just no escaping this one.
I have struggled since 2005: the constant adjusting of medicines, the gory side effects, the difficulty of explaining to the girls just what it is that sent their beloved mama to a place where they could not follow.
I don’t mean to be tedious, I don’t. But the mind is something most of us take for granted, and that is worth stating.
“There are fixes,” we are told. But this is not always the case. There are things that can help, but it is a perpetual carousel for some. Garish. Sometimes, it’s a funhouse, but it’s not fun, not fun at all. It can be grotesque, frightening. The funhouse mirrors do not tell the story.
I want to feel better. Some days, that seems a viable goal. Some days, it does not.
Take a minute to think about someone confounding in your life, a friend who does not answer the phone when you call, a friend who does not respond. Chances are good it’s nothing about you—it’s simply about physics. There is a finite amount of energy, and your friend may be hoarding it, so she can offer what she can to the people who need her the most: her children.
Always know: It is never about you. Don’t feel slighted.
Always know: Your kindness does not go unrecognized. You may make all the difference to someone, with a kind gesture. They simply may not be able to respond to you in the way you would like. For now, at least. But they think of you gratefully as they sit hunched on their couch, eating a bowl of soup or pasta you have left on their porch.
Be good. Don’t judge, if you can help it. If happiness comes easily to you, if you sleep reasonably well, if an invitation from a friend brings you joy and not anxiety, count your blessings. It’s a gift beyond measure, a gift beyond what you know.
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