Write about What You Know

Thank you, Charles Schulz.

Write about what you know. The cardinal rule for writers. I've heard it again and again. It's why John McPhee's nature writing is so powerful, Henry Beston's seaside tales so wind-whipped and salty, Ina Garten's cookbooks always homey and come-into-my-kitchen warm.

I am an expert on depression. Not just the depression I've witnessed in those I love--I couldn't presume to be an expert on that, as I don't live in their heads and hearts. Yet even as a bystander, it is scary and fierce.

No, I'm an expert on my own pain and sadness.

No matter that there's a little kindergartner with braids and a cheetah sweater who says cute things or a teenager who can make me smile with wry observations. No matter that I take meds and see a therapist. I find myself in some pretty severe snits. I don't want to/can't return calls and texts from friends and Sis. My flannel sheets are my closest friends. Soft and warm and forgiving. When no one else understands, they do.

Unfortunately, this is not a new theme for me. Check this blog post from February 2010 called When Taking a Shower is a Giant Step.

I want to write my thoughts down as a way to chip, or plow, through them. To shake them off my shoulders like a weighty beaded dress. Toss them by the door like soggy wet mittens.

Shaking the blue devil is what my friend Eric calls the effort to snap out of it. To roll over on my side, put my feet on the floor and stand. To walk, cotton-mouthed, to the bathroom. To make it downstairs so I can eat lunch and drink water. To know it's unseasonably beautiful out, and I got dressed for boot camp, but can't get in the car and go. Must crawl back into bed. The world doesn't understand me. No one does. Only my faithful little friend, who flops on her side beside me and will stay there indefinitely.

It's not just blue. It's dark. Empty. Hopeless. Lonely. It's self-loathing and despair, defeat, finality. As though you can't change the future, or even the next hour, so what's the point of trying?

It's studying the floor-length white lace curtains H. bought at Target, the little holes in the pattern, the stacks of children's books, food magazines, novels. It's fear. How will I make all these calls, set all these appointments. How will I do my work? Negotiate my work deals? How?

I'm tired of writing about it now. Facing it, fearing it, wrestling it. Easier to sink into the flannel sheets and surrender to it.

I've been up for 6 hours now. It's time to retreat to bed. I hope/pray/trust that by tomorrow, I can get dressed in more than sweats, put on good shoes and go about my business productively.

Good night.

TCOY

1. Walked Sugar around the block twice.
2. Did text two people from support group.
3. Therapist came to our house for regular Private Benjamin for Punch. She was also supportive to me.