The Future Is Not Now and Maybe I’m Ok With That

 

The last few years have been a long-distance marathon away from a pick-your-poison selection of darknesses. The state of being me felt unrelenting and impossible to bear — In my mind, I was not running towards anything better, I was just running away. I was plumb out of fight, so all that was left was a panicked flight to keep the shadows behind me — hard to do when you’re not necessarily setting the sun as your destination.

Somewhere between the dim
And the dark
Somewhere between the dim
And the dark. – Jump, Little Children

Towards the end of this particular dark ages, I felt like a specimen of myself trapped in amber. That was the worst — this feeling of being irreparably stuck where I was. Eventually, I got the tools to slowly chip my way out.

Still, Sunday was tough. It was Rowan’s fourth birthday — the anniversary of the best worst day of my life. The kids tag-teamed absolute atrocious behavior (anybody know how to get ball-point pen off of my microfiber couch? Anyone? Bueller?) My mood was low and my fuse short, but the day was so much better than it used to be.

This year, it feels like a scary and sad thing that happened four years ago. A past tense event. Until recently, thinking about Rowan’s birth felt very present. I felt feelings as if it were happening all over again. Memories were so close to the surface that little things could put my brain right back into the fear and sadness of those days.

May is preeclampsia awareness month (and asthma awareness and mental health awareness and awareness awareness…). Every time I think preeclampsia has stopped giving me gifts, it digs up some other yard sale bullshit to hand out like a goody bag at a weird party. A few weeks ago, I had an MRI (sinus stuff, nothing scary). An incidental finding of the scan was that I did have a minor stroke at some point. A radiologist friend looked at it for me and confirmed. She feels sure it was during the preeclampsia; I had lots of symptoms that could have masked a small stroke. Ultimately, it’s just knowledge and not clinically important, but I’m glad I found it out now, rather than any other time in the last few years. I cannot imagine the tailspin it would have sent me into. The could-have-beens would have carried the feeling of the could-still-be.

Yes, preeclampsia, I am aware. I have not forgotten you. Why are you so fucking needy?

This year, the heaviness is pleasantly self-limiting — it feels like how I am, not what I am. I finally feel that instead of running away from everything, I’m running towards something.

Driving home you see a cloud
Makes the sun a giant shroud
Makes you understand the phrase: silver lining
Though it’s dark as far as sight
Dark can’t terminate the light
Somewhere on the other side the sun is shining  – The Nields

 

I was talking to my friend Charlotte on the phone the other night and she said, “It’s like the universe said, ‘let’s take Rhiannon’s favorite season and add all these horrible things!'”

The time when I traditionally felt better had become a Groundhog Day of so many horrible events that plagued me year after year. The temperature may have felt like Spring, but in my brain I was stuck in a perpetual winter. The contrast between what I wanted and what I was getting was a chasm of cold darkness and other cliches.

Finally, after so many winters, I have come back around to spring. It’s an early spring, ripe with newness and curiosity. This week has reminded me that there are still some chilly days, but at least the forecast always calls for more warmth.

But I held the evil of the world
So I stopped the tide
Froze it up from inside
And it felt like
A winter machine that you go through and then
You catch your breath and winter starts again
And everyone else is spring bound – Dar Williams

So now, the difficulty is in tolerating the uncertainty of the future. It feel so much better to be running towards a future instead of away, but towards what? I have spent so much time railing against the past and the present that I am completely unskilled in disengaging from that when looking forwards. The thing about depression is that it feels hopeless, which is almost comforting in a weird way. You just know you’re going to feel terrible for the rest of forever. When every decision will be the wrong one, you just stab in the dark and hope for the not-worst.

Now there are choices to make. What next? What next? What next?

Sophia’s got a notebook
of promises tucked away
all the things she’s gonna
do and when
but now it’s underneath her mattress
underneath her skin
Sophia says if i don’t get out soon
I’ll lose my mind
take me anywhere surprise me – Eddie From Ohio