Bye-bye Demons (and thanks, Oma)

I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago and published it, but didn't feel brave enough to keep it. Sometimes writing feels quite vulnerable. Many thanks to Oma for inspiring me to keep all the honesty in here, tough times and all.

Written Dec. 30 '08:

There's a passage in Eat, Pray, Love when Gilbert wrote about loneliness and depression, how they lurked by her side like demons in Italy:

"'It's not fair for you to come here," I tell Depression. "I paid you off already. I served my time back in New York.'

"But he just gives me that dark smile, settles into my favorite chair, puts his feet on my table and lights a cigar, filling the place with his awful smoke. Loneliness watches and sighs, then climbs into my bed and pulls the covers over himself, fully dressed, shoes and all. He's going to make me sleep with him again tonight, I just know it" (48).

At one point in the passage, she explains how she just got off antidepressants and wonders if she could have survived without them, but notes that "That's the thing about a human life--there's no control group, no way to ever know how any of us would have turned out if any variables had been changed" (52).

I am not depressed right now. I think tired is the better word. And I am not (nor, actually, have ever been on) antidepressants. But I have definitely battled anxiety and insomnia before. A medication probably would have been useful at some points, especially when I got injured and stopped running. Running was my therapy long before writing became it. I think it was my key to a healthy constitution, the ability to run and run and run every day until I was washed clean through and drained of ghosts. Unfortunately, without running, and with a love of caffeine, one of my first responses to stress is an inability to sleep. It's a problem because not being able to sleep is like sliding down a slick spiral. You're basically just waiting for morning when you can stop trying so damn hard, and then night returns and you have to battle through it all over again. If I didn't have a baby, wasn't responsible for her well being and happiness, I would just give in to insomnia when it visits, pick a good book and stay up all night if I needed to. I did that a few times in grad school and one morning, after not sleeping for a week and reading a book through the night, I was a bleary mess. I put on my running shoes and ran around Lake Merritt. That was a terrifically bad way to deal with a knee injury, and after running 6 miles without any warm up or training, I reinjured myself and was back to walking hills in Piedmont.

I've been thinking a lot the past few days about variables--what makes a life, a life. I just recently encountered again the realization that there's this trigger that I haven't figured out how to stop. As B says, I haven't filled my toolbox with the right tools. It happens for a specific reason, which isn't worth going into here, but all the good feelings and strength just blow out of me and I start to question everything.

When I go through times like this, I question myself. It's my first response. I don't think that's always a bad thing. I think it's important to question ourselves. It's just that some people question the world, hit angrily at the circumstances around them; I seem to turn against myself. Last night B said he thinks I doubt myself too much these days. He's right. It's like Doubt and Worry are my bedfellows during stressful times, taking turns pulling at my hair and insidiously wandering into my head. The feeling of being derailed is visceral. I think I invited those emotions in one time and forgot to tell them they were no longer needed, no longer welcome.

I need to grow up, grow out of it, heave it off my shoulders, go through a transformation and just throw all the crap far, far away.

I'm really ready for that. Maybe Doubt and Worry have become like little dependable appendages. Like built-in crutches that I rediscover every time I am stressed--Oh, here they are! My default responses! Let's go have a party and hang out, just the three of us, and we can spend the next few days spiraling into a state of misery and dejection!

I wondered if I was going to write about this. It appears that I have. :) I'm sorry to drag you through my midafternoon therapy session. But I guess I think it's safe to say that most of us have, at one point or another, battled our own fears and injuries, similar feelings of loss and confusion, all in our own personal ways. I guess that's one of the reasons I feel like writing about this. Being human is hard sometimes. Life wouldn't really be interesting if it wasn't. We all have our conflicts and our questions.

So, I want to know: Can it be done? Can we decide to live differently, from the inside out--really, really from the inside? Start today, start now, do it flamboyantly?

I remember a quote, something about how we are injured not so much by what other people do to us but by our own emotional responses. I think childhood difficulties are more complex because when you're a kid it's really hard to be zen and sort of look around you and put it all in perspective. But it's different when we're adults. I wonder, can we rewrite our past--not by turning a blind eye on the bad stuff, but by highlighting the good instead--and watch it slowly and dramatically affect our present?

If so, then let today be the day that I say goodbye to doubt and worry and self-incrimination, so that I give as much love and energy and focus to living an intentioned life as I give to my daughter.

Is it that simple? I'm going to give it a try and see.

Cora just woke up and I am finishing this while she reads her book. She has rosy red, milk-fed cheeks, sleep-glossed eyes and a cute little smile. She just got up and is trying to tap on my keyboard. She keeps saying bye-bye. I guess she wants me to stop this silly typing. We're going to get out of the house and give this intentioned life a try.