I've just returned from a late afternoon/early evening at the home of friends who have a new baby boy. These are friends I haven't seen in a while ... there's an intense, tragic and ultimately comforting story behind all of this, and I may get to it in a little while.
I slept almost not at all last night; Neil left for Florida at 6 this morning and I was still awake. This trip to visit friends is a long time coming and my relationship with them is very important to me. Di and I got comically lost en route to their house, more than doubling what should have been an hour or so of driving. I was worried -- imagine that? -- that my state of mind would be misconstrued, that tired would read as apathetic, observing as judging. I don't think this was the case; I think it was a successful visit and an appropriate one for the situation at hand, weird as it may have been.
I've never had a sense of how I come across to others -- probably because I'm so all-over-the-place inside. My love for the people (and dogs) I love is unwavering -- and it's difficult for me to connect without loving to some degree. In turn, I've developed this notion that I come across as completely inconsistent to others. Yes, I've heard mixed messages all my life -- who hasn't? As such, the way I've thought I've seemed to others at various times and the response I've actually gotten from them has often taken me by surprise. I hope that's grammatically correct. I'm tired and off the clock right now.
When I was just out of college I went through the first of my two deepest black holes -- of depression, that is; I've been through countless black holes of troubled, insecure, self-medicating, misguided, raging dysfunction. And while I was in this first phase of bleakness it was my sister -- Jules, I'm not trying to make you sad, this is the truth and I appreciate it -- who told me that I was strong. Exact words, "Laurs, you're such a strong person and I know you'll get through this, and someday you'll be able to say, 'Yeah, I went through a really tough time in my early 20s, and I learned so much.'" I had no recollection of being perceived this way prior to this conversation, and it has, in many ways, sustained me to a degree of which Julia has no idea.
She was right that I'm able to say this, though it's now almost two decades later and I've had cause to remind myself of this time and again. In my early-to-mid 30s I went through the second of my that-kind-of-black holes, and I was working in a job that required a certain insensitivity toward the plight of others. I thought I was failing miserably, in part because I was miserable. When you're depressed, that kind of depressed, you think "crazy" "unbalanced" "creepy" and "glum" are written all over you. You picture yourself as you must look to others, your face scrawled in Sharpie, a fruitcake hat perched askew, a broken-gray shroud covering your face and entirely inappropriate clothing for the weather at hand. You feel like everything you think, say and do is unappealing: if I ask for tomatoes in my salad will the waiter think I'm gross? Do the people on this train think I'm nuts for carrying an umbrella when it's not actually raining? If I try to smile at my neighbor will he think I think I'm pretty?
So I worked at this job while feeling this way and I felt lost and fat and pale and gross and like I was slowing the whole thing down.
The day I announced my impending departure (and weeks later this all lifted, for which I'd like to thank certain pharmaceutical companies and a very insightful doctor), my boss said, "I'm disappointed; I thought you were doing such a great job." Words, I said to myself, lifting a corner of the shroud to adjust the fruitcake. About a week ago, six years after I left that place, my name came up between Friend and Former Boss. And Former Boss said, "Oh -- she's fabulous -- tell her I say hi." Fabulous? The one who wore the ill-fitting top, who actually ate the roll that came with the soup, who went to Jamaica and came home more pale?
On the flip side is the former good friend who announced one day that I'm far too self-centered (this doesn't count; it's my blahg) and didn't care about anyone. Self-centered ... yes, the person whose thoughts I most examine, whose emotions I most assess, and whose well-being I feel I can most control is, in fact, me. Neil running a close second, but still. Not caring? If I could relieve myself the burden of caring I wouldn't be me. I wouldn't cry nearly every day, I wouldn't be disappointed in others, I wouldn't worry so much. I can keep myself alive; I can't keep everyone else with me. I came, I cared, I collapsed ... to relieve myself my love and caring would be freeing, wonderful, and completely subtract me from the equation I am.
I've listened, as we all do, to all the things people have said about me. I know I'm a good person -- we all owe ourselves that honor -- and I know I've been horrible in the past and have deeply hurt others in ways that devastate me to think about now. But I think we should listen to the things said in calmness and internalize them more than we tend to those said in anger.
Up next ... top ten reasons to limit the Sauvignon Blanc before my next post.
