When Your Day is Night Alone

Irealized last month that I was crying every single day, often multipletimes a day. Perhaps if you know me, see me daily, you find thisshocking. Yes, well. I am very good at hiding what I feel, managing mymessy emotional landscape for your greater comfort. I can “leak” andrecover well; I think I was born with this innate ability, as well ashoning it to art form over the scores of losses I’ve taken in theaching years that have been my life. My pain is usually intenselyprivate, and I can (and do) move mountains to make you believe my dog and ponyshow.

Ihad not really realized I was crying so often, though. I was takenaback, even appalled a little. That is not normal, is it? Do mostpeople cry every day, especially as the day dawns and the sun sets? Ifso, I suggest that we all, collectively, do ourselves a disservice inthe cloaking and dampening of emotion. Maybe we would all do a betterjob of caring for each other if we knew when each other was in pain.

SoI will raise my hand and admit it -- I am in pain, a wrenching sort ofemotional corkscrewing that chews at the fibers of my mind like a rabidrat, weakening everything in its hunger. And I have been under theonslaught for years now. It did not deluge me; it sort of snuck inslowly, accumulating like thick dust along the shelves of my life andmy heart. And now I mostly just live with it; it has become thebackdrop of every day, every interaction. Does *this* person helpassuage the ache? Does *that* food fill my void and comfort me for amoment? Does this activity distract me from the abyss? It is ratherlike a sorting exercise: one prioritizes the activities that ameliorateand postpones those that aggravate.

Ata Socrates Cafe a few weeks ago, we discussed why humans are sodisinclined to be happy. Much was made of expectation, of making the“choice” to “be content.” None of these lay philosophers seemed tograsp the point I made, which is one based in science -- nature abhorsa vacuum, and the rare equilibrium, *when* one truly exists, isobtained at a constant, grinding, often huge, cost. Ergo it is notreasonable to expect contentment and peace from systems or bodies thatare not at rest, i.e., living and breathing humans. If one is living,and moving, one is hurting or at immediate risk for doing so. There maybe a modicum of choice in how much one chooses to focus on that hurt,but the reality is easy enough to reduce to the basic theorem -- lifefully lived requires the expenditure of energy, and expending energyrequires an exchange, a cost. “You have to break some eggs if you’regonna make a cake,” as it were.

Alife fully lived ... it’s in my head tonight, and tearing open myheart, because I got another  missive/update from my mother and aunt,about the slow spiral of dementia that has finally caught up with andbegun to eclipse my grandmother. My feisty,10-feet-tall-and-bulletproof grandmother, who loaned me $5,000 when Ilost my job in college, so I could squeeze out the last two semesterswithout working, and then forgave the loan. Who wrote me letters oflove and concern every single time I made a bad engagement. Who chidesme for “not being happy where I was planted.” Who raised four childrensingle-handedly after her alcoholic husband died young. She lived mostof her life alone, finding love and companionship only in the lastdecade of her life, only a few short years before he slipped away anddied on her, too. Her life is slipping away from her now inless-than-graceful, less-than-loving stages. Oh, how I ache for her.And for my family, bogged down in the care of her, which is equal partsdeflecting misbegotten hatred from my grandmother, who resents them for“ruining her life,” and constantly, constantly repeating things.

I wonder: was her life fully lived?

Isuppose anyone’s greatest fear might be the loss of one’s mind in oldage. Frailty slipping in, the unwanted intruder, stealing memories,robbing hope. It certainly is mine; often, I feel that all I havethat’s of any merit is my mind. I have no children, no career. No greatbeauty, no great talent. I am merely what I think about and therelationships I create. Is that a life fully lived?

Fora while I wasn’t sure I was going to find out. I slid a few ticks over from "beat up" and plopped right into despair. My old friend, depression, was in the house. It was harder to keepgetting up in the mornings, to keep going through the motions. I beganto plot again: which woods I would hike into and never return from.Which overpass would be a good impact point, and how fast I would needto be going. I could see the writing on the wall, my name written inred. The edge was slipping away from me again, and I could feel the fallinto perpetual, pervasive shadow approaching. So I decided recently togo back on Lexapro. I have been fighting a losing battle for monthsnow, and if that little pill and its placebo affect can save my life,well, I might as well let it ... to see if I can really keep living mylife fully, chock full of heart and hurt and potential loss. As ifthere could be anything else for me. For any of us.