Six months ago, I lost my dad. Or, was in the process of losing him.
The distinction between “here” and “gone” is fuzzy. What I know is that at 4:20 pm on March 28th, I thought the day was as bad as it could get. By 4:25, pm that perspective had been turned upside down.
If you’re an extremely perceptive person, you may have caught just an inkling of the fact that I have felt a little reluctant about this whole DBT group thing.
You know how kids think having to eat vegetables is some sort of punishment? After they’ve turned down yet another food you know they would like if they would just try it, you’re like, “just eat this fucking broccoli because it’s good for you! Why won’t you listen to me?!”
I haven’t felt much like writing.
Sometimes this is the canary in the depressive coalmine but I’m not sure that’s the case right now. My goal this year was to write less but write better. Quality over quantity. Somehow that has led to writing almost nothing at all.
This weekend, a friend and I took our daughters to White Lake. I grew up going there for a week every summer — it’s a place full of so much nostalgia. Extra so, since absolutely nothing has changed in the last 30 years. Well ok, fewer people chain smoking on the beach. Also, there are now mini fridges in the motel rooms.
I originally wrote this for The Mighty but it felt like a good time to put it on my blog, as a reminder to myself.
The last few weeks have left me raw. A bundle of nerve endings too close to the surface, chafed by every tiny demand thrown by life. It would short circuit and leave me feeling stuck in the murky darkness, where feelings are different. Less than and greater than at the same time — a heavy fog shrouding the world in a deep sense of dread and confusion. I was aware that there were alternatives to the be found — that happiness did exist as a gossamer, intangible idea somewhere beyond the grey. A theoretical thing. If I reached for it, my hand came back empty.