Grief

Recently, several people have told me how painful they find it to read my bloggings about depression.  Honestly, I have little sensitivity for how my writing comes across:  to me, this is just everyday stuff, no big whoop.  But I'm beginning to recognize that you readers may not see it that way, that these entries are distressing.  I want to say, hang on, I'll be writing about the upsides soon, and I will, but I've not gotten down to the depths I want to plumb yet so the upsides are yet a bit ahead.  

As I mentioned in an eariler post, I grieve almost perpetually as one of the ways I feel depressed.  To me, grief is a longing for something lost when I know it is irretrievably lost.  That unrequitable longing expresses as a deep, thorough sadness, a lump in my throat and a propensity to weep, an vascilation between a desperate denial of loss and a self-loathing surety of loss that chastises me for my foolish denial.  I am also helpless facing loss, which leads to a frustrated anger at time's remorseless march, at the fleeting nature of experience as time flows insensiate into the past.  In grief, I am constantly looking to the past, longing for moments past, so much so that I have almost no expectations for the future, no excitement for upcoming events.  Grief locks me in an eternal present that streams and tatters forceably away to the past.

I remember this grief from a young age.  The summer between my third and fourth grade years was magical in many ways:  the weather was perfect, I had discovered butterfly collecting, I had become a competent outfielder in baseball, even making the all-star team, I had learned how to yo-yo, I could go on.  Suffice it to say I had matured to a point where I was capable of skill in several areas:  I enjoyed being good at things.  Yet during that summer, I found myself thinking about the nature of time, discussing time with my brother and neighbors, arguing about the possibility of time travel (like we saw on Star Trek), but realizing that the wonderful game of kick-the-can we played yesterday was forever gone, somehow destroyed by being past, that though we had indeed played and enjoyed ourselves, we could never get back to that specific evening, that particular game.  I remember the sadness I felt, the frustration even then that I couldn't hold on to good times, to events and smells and tastes and feelings:  all flow away never to return.

Here's where depression is not sane:  I do not experience bad times the same way.  When I am suffering, I do not realize that time flows the same for bad times as for good, I do not see grief as limited in duration simply because all events end as they move from present to the past.  I should understand that my depression, too, can have an end, that I may well find myself in a present free from depression, that like all other things my depression has flowed into the past and has become irretrievable.  To put this differently, I should be able to imagine a future where I stand in a present free from depression, I should be able to turn around and let time's wind blow through me forcefully, placing my hopes on my depression fraying and tattering simply because I can remember (vaguely now, but still actually) how I felt before I became depressed and I can imagine feeling that way again.  This is possible:  depression, too, can pass.  But can I turn and refocus from the past to the future?  Or, can I forget both past and future and focus on this eternal present, can I celebrate "now" as rich and vibrant, filled with both good and bad but all the more blessed because of it, varied and textured and always real?

Well, I'm not prepared to call myself "insane," though as a depressive I'd certainly not call myself "sane" either.  My grief for the past does not relent, or I do not relent from my grieving.  At some level, I do recognize that my posture, my attention is a matter of decision, that I am not helplessly posed in retrospect.  Someday, I will reposition myself, I will turn and face a new direction.  Sadly, today is not that day, not yet.  Thank you for reading.