Confessional Fridays: Flirting with my past

For all my complaining about not having enough good IRL friends, I’m sure not doing much to remedy the situation.

In fact, I’m not take advantages of situations that would help me meet IRL friends. Like a meet up of local moms at a wine bar near my house. That I didn’t go to last night.

I planned on going. I had emailed that I would go. I marked it on my calendar. I was even looking forward to it. And then the time came and I didn’t go. I just didn’t want to.

And now I feel pretty disappointed in myself.

The truth is I’m struggling right now. A lot. And I’m not completely sure why. I also don’t know why last night the thought of shooting the shit with a bunch of mothers between sips of wine felt reminiscent of writing a thesis paper. I really, really didn’t want to go. But then, part of me was so disappointed when I didn’t.

When I was in high school and college I wanted desperately for someone to love me. I was never in a relationship during that time and I was sure I would live my life without anyone to ever tell me they loved me. I was also certain that if someone did love me, my life would have been indescribably better, perhaps perfect.

I know now that I was depressed. I knew it at the time, but not in the way you can know something that you’ve had a chance to walk away from and examine with the benefits of time and distance. I don’t believe you can ever really see something when you’re completely immersed in it. The reality is I started struggling with depression while becoming an adult. I knew that something wasn’t right, but I also didn’t know what it felt like for that something to not be wrong. Surely “not depressed at 23” felt very different from “not depressed at 16.” Eventually, I came to find that the difference was significant but only later could I understand what “not depressed at 23” meant for me.

Now I see that I couldn’t be in a relationship during that time not because I was unlovable, but because I was incapable of love. Not only was I unable to extend love to others, but I couldn’t love myself. We’ve all read in a fortune cookie once that we can’t love others unless we love ourselves. And you know what? It’s true.

I’m reminded again of that. I’m also discovering that when you don’t love yourself the love of others does little to remedy the situation. On the contrary, it feels strangely burdensome. When you sink into the thick, sucking muck of a depression the love of others is just another responsibility, another reason to struggle and fight to pull yourself out when you’re so tired and all you want to do is succumb.

When you’re in a relationship others depend on you. Your moods aren’t just your own, they belong to both you and your partner (or your family). Or perhaps they belong only to you, but your family has no choice but to live with them. Like your annoying guest who has outstayed his welcome: he may be your responsibility but ultimately your family has to shoulder all the inconvenience that he creates. And it’s even more frustrating for them when the bathroom is unavailable for hours at a time or the TV is keeping everyone up because your family can’t do anything about it. You should be telling that guy to just get the hell out, but you don’t.

And just like you will ultimately have to kick out your own unwelcome visitor, you will have to find away to kick out the low feelings that are affecting not just you, but everyone around you. The problem is, sometimes you don’t know how.

I got some really devastating news from a close friend yesterday. The kind of news that makes you question everything. My heart breaks for my friend and I feel so helpless in the wake of her tragedy. I wish I knew what to say or what to do but I feel so helpless. Maybe it’s because I know that nothing anybody can do will ever lessen her pain.

It makes me so sad and it also reminds me that I have so much. In four days my own beautiful daughter turns one. Why does writing that sentence make me cry? Do I mourn her babyhood so intensely? I absolutely adore the toddler she is becoming; I would argue that the next twelve months will be more wonderful than the first. And yet I feel the reality of it wrapping around me, constricting my lungs until I can no longer draw breath.

In seven days I start summer vacation. I will have eight weeks of blissful, almost uninterrupted time with my daughter. I am very much looking forward to this. I am so pleased to have this opportunity. This is why I became a teacher! This is why I tolerate the low pay and the combative parents and my district (and state’s) complete lack of professional respect. I do all of that so I can have these weeks with her, to be her mother without also being someone else.

I have so very, very much and yet all I see is the emptiness between the things I should be celebrating. I see the holes in our bank accounts that cause us such financial stress. I see the scarce hours at night when we’re too tired to pursue our interests. I see the stretch of bed between us and feel the emotional distance it represents. I see the space that would be there if it weren’t filled with all my useless crap. I see how perfect my house would be if I weren’t too lazy to clean it. I see how much more effectively I would teach if I could just muster up some enthusiasm. I see the sympathetic ears that would be available if I knew how to cultivate friendships. I look past everything that I do have to focus on what I don’t.

I know it just takes the slightest shift in perspective to celebrate what is there instead of focusing on what is not. I just can’t remember how to make that shift. Instead I remember this muddled, gray, exasperated feeling of depression. This morning a song I used to love came on and the familiarity of how I felt was shocking. It was almost like nostalgia. Can you feel nostalgic for one of the harder times in your life? Was it just a nostalgia for the familiarity of it, for the effortlessness with which I could resume that role?  At a time when everything in our lives is being changed by our “parent” identities maybe I just want something that doesn’t require so much work, even if that something makes me miserable.

Of course, it wouldn’t be the same even if I did succumb to the depths of depression. I have no time for the self-indulgence required. Too many people depend on me, one of them entirely. And I love my family too much to invite that obnoxious visitor in for an extended stay. He may have been a good friend back in college, when we could stay up late and sleep in later, when we could get drunk without worrying how to work through the hang over, when we could leave pizza boxes in the kitchen for a week because we didn’t need the counter space anyway. He may have been tolerable back then when self-destruction didn’t cost so much, when I didn’t really have anything to lose. But now? Now I have a everything to lose.

And I need to go tell this asshole to go wallow elsewhere because I have no intention of doing this depression thing again.