Remember that wonderful 90s pop song, "Lullabye"? I don't consider myself any kind of objective when it comes to judging 90s pop songs; saturated in a glowing nostalgia -- weird because it wasn't like I was a happy teenager -- they always seem amazing to me, the power chords, the scratchy grunge voices, and I can't be convinced that they're crap.
"Lullabye" is no exception. I loved the chorus; it became a mantra I used for myself, and then later for my sister: Everything's gonna be all right...Rockabye... I kept the words close, sang them silently to myself at night. Everything's gonna be all right. Mostly I clung to them, to the idea, so desperately because I only believed it in a blind zeal for wish fulfillment, a last starveling hope.
Well, I forgot all about it in the last few years. I'm doing the usual year-end review in my head, and weighing 2008 in terms of its pleasantness and unpleasantness, and, as always, I give thanks for the sometimes severe, sometimes tender mercies that made themselves new throughout the past twelve months, and bid a nonregretful farewell to another year. New Year's always comes to me with a sense of relief: one down, x to go. The future once again becomes an unbroken, snowy field, a tabula rasa where the wind blows cold and clean and the naked trees hold promises and the untouched ground begs me for snow angels and the things I left behind me, the lostness, the scraped knees, the grief, fall to powerless memory like the substance of Echo, and there is nothing but now, and nothing but what's to come, and the cold scorches in tongues of wind stirring my blood like flame.
Over the past week I've been completely engaged in a momentous internal struggle. Christmas was thought provoking in its singular misery. For three years now I have thought that my growing disenchantment with Christmas had to do with long hours driving, with always being a guest among the members of my family; yes, being single is no fun around the holidays, but I figured that the real root was distance from my parents and my sister.
Wrong. Or rather, only partially right. I had a nice time this Christmas with my parents, waking up early and exchanging simple gifts and eating Mom's fabulous coffee cake and drinking Dad's fabulous lattes; but I preferred to sleep. Holiday retail exhaustion did no favors for my perspective, but I found myself unutterably depressed, and unwilling to express it for fear of hurting Mom and Dad's feelings. Because the trouble wasn't with their company, and also wasn't quite with Laura's absence. I didn't identify the problem until the next day, and it was a relief finally to recognize it, to hold it up to the light and examine it and decide what to do.
The trouble is that the magic of Christmas that I loved in my childhood is gone, and I didn't get to trade it for anything. I don't get to spend Christmas in the cozy intimacy of my sister and her husband, or the passionate and deep knowledge, forged from long commitment, of my parents, or in vicarious joy watching children of my own tear into presents. In its spiritual aspect, by far, of course, the most important, Christmas keeps growing in beauty, in joy, in profundity. Midnight Mass was incredible. But in its other cultural observances, Christmas sucks.
Yep, I said it. Christmas sucks. But all that means is that I could be doing different things to observe it better, to eliminate suckage. In that light, I'm embarking on another experiment. Living far away and driving home isn't the answer; living near enough to be present all the time doesn't work either. The most enjoyable Christmas of my adult experience was the one I spent with the Sommervilles four years ago, and from that I draw the hypothesis that spending Christmas away and doing something new might be the answer.
To test that hypothesis, I decided to take a page from the book of a certain Traveler I know, and save up enough money, by scrapes and pennies, to be somewhere else next Christmas. Right now I'm thinking somewhere tropical. Beaches, hammocks, sunshine, margaritas. Somewhere I've never seen, someplace where no memories exist that could hurt me with the longing for unfulfilled dreams. If I can't have everything I want, I'll do other things to make my life as amazing as possible. I'll make my own traditions. I'm not settling for a half-life anymore; I'm going to make it new, and love the process. No more Christmases of bitter nostalgia; what a pointless way to exist. I want life. I want joy. And the beauty of joy is that you get to make it in your own way; there's no script.
While that happy little flame glimmered under the bushel basket, other thoughts began flickering. Extensions of that decision. Looking honestly at why I hate Christmas spurred me to looking honestly at other things. The issue with the deepest impact, of course, is my struggle with depression. Naming it the devilfish was one way for me to identify it as something foreign to me, something alien, something essentially not me. Because, having lived with it since my adolescence, sometimes I can't tell where its tentacles stop and my limbs begin. It got all intertwined, and I fell into that mindset I've always despised -- the love of the desert-exiled Hebrew for the old slavery, the fear of the unimaginable Promised Land.
But the way I've been living sucks. This is no life. No matter that I barely remember a time before the depression; no matter that I am, in hateable but undeniable ways, afraid of life without it. The questions crop up: Will I still feel things as deeply? Still see people as clearly? Still be me? But I know the answer on all counts: Yes. Yes, and then some. So maybe I can't exactly wrap my head around the concept of living free of this thing that drags me under. But I believe it will be better than what I have. Bring on the unknown -- bring on the storm. I'm declaring war.
There are a lot of front lines in this war, already amassed against me. There are the basic four, of course: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. Social and financial also factor in. I have my work cut out for me here...but I know I can do it. Guerilla style. I wrote in my journal this morning, "From here on out I am no captive, no inert prisoner twisting blind on the torture table. I am a soldier. [...] I have no mercy. My body is covered in wicked scars, but they don't hinder me -- they testify to my determination, they strengthen my knowledge of my enemy, they mark me a survivor. [...] I will emerge victorious. I know this because this war has already been won. My Captain has overcome the world."
I'm a little afraid that some of this sounds insane itself, that crazy Christian fanaticism I so deeply despise. But overall I don't care. In more normal terms, my new mantra (for which my sister would undoubtedly yell at me; something about unhealthy self-classifications) is "What Would Normal People Do?" Part of my task is to name things properly, to sort what is me from what is the devilfish. For example, I'm a procrastinator. That's part of who I am. I don't need to attribute my procrastination to depression; depression can make it worse, but the procrastination is itself not a manifestation of the devilfish. Which makes it easier to do things like putting away the dishes and cleaning out the catbox -- putting those things off is of the devilfish. But putting other things off, like preparing to teach Sunday School this week, is just my ordinary procrastination. Not a great habit, to be sure, but not part of psychological disorderedness. Just an ordinary bad habit. (Ah, you beautiful, ordinary bad habit.)
Because I want to be normal. I have a couple models that I didn't have before (thank you, 2008), of what life without depression can actually be like, and let me tell you, it looks pretty damn good. I'm not satisfied with coping anymore; I don't want to live with this. I want to live without it. I don't want to cope; I want to eradicate.
I read Ephesians 6 yesterday, and savored it all over again this morning, letting the ancient words fuel this growing heat smoldering in my blood (a smoldering wick he will not snuff out...), sharpen me to my purpose:
Finally, draw your strength from the Lord and from his mighty power. Put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the devil. For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens. Therefore, put on the armor of God, that you may be able to resist on the evil day and, having done everything, to hold your ground. So stand fast with your loins girded in truth, clothed with righteousness as a breastplate, and your feet shod in readiness for the gospel of peace. In all circumstances, hold faith as a shield, to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. (vv. 10-17, New American Bible)
So, with all the gains and losses of the past years decorating my skin, all the hard and bitter, and light and sweet, lessons I have learned, while one part of me is frolicking in the snow (I'm so excited! I can live without this thing! Maybe it will require more concentration for me than for people who aren't afflicted with depression, but I can be okay. I can be normal in the ways I should be normal. Everything is going to be all right. And -- best of all -- I can love people more. This thing won't be suffocating my responses to others. I can love), another part of me is standing on a ribbon bridge of stone in a dark chasm facing an ancient evil, a sword of flame. That part of me, legs braced, sword gleaming, still, ready, sweaty, dirty, determined, is glaring up at the thing, welling up with four words, four simple words that say everything that can be said:
You shall not pass.
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