We’re Not Scared To Lose It All

It was like suddenly seeing in only black and white, with the occasional pop of red or fire, like in Pleasantville or Schindler’s List. All of the magic and light and sparkles were scrubbed away, revealing dirt and dust and decay. It was downright ridiculous how fast I learned to spin every little thing into a horror movie scenario. Yet maybe it was downright ridiculous before that, at how I could spin every little thing into a Disney movie scenario. There was no in-between, with the bearings and groundings and abilities to cope with the real world. The harsh truths and the tragedies and traumas. You need your world to be wide open sometimes; with it, your heart. And with it, your mind. Sometimes and often, that’s when it hurts the most. And sometimes, often?

I’m speaking, of course, about recent times when I fell into my crisis mode of being postpartum depressed; feeling trapped inside my own brain. It was, as we have discussed, the perfect storm of suffering my first real loss in a long time, while also being in the tender and tenuous fourth trimester. Sawyer was only six weeks along, and I was only six weeks along in my role as a new mama of four. And I had to experience gender disappointment, which I had never had, along with severe trauma at being kept at the hospital for high blood pressure while in labor. Nothing had ever been really wrong with me in the past. It’s actually amazing, and not necessarily in the good way, that I climbed out of that hole without medication or therapy. That doesn’t mean I recommend no treatment, and it doesn’t mean I won’t need it one day. It was understanding.

And I understood the internal and external forces swirling in their perfect series of storms. The news stories and the physical sensations. The overwhelm and the inevitable. I was surprised I got that far in life without such a colossal existential crisis. Such a long-winded one that turned my world to black. I still see it, but the little bits of ME trickle steadily back in, in twos and fours.

Sometimes they get locked in combat against each other. Part of my mind screaming, “What’s the point of anything?” The other part screaming back, “With everything, there’s deep meaning and you know this.” Yet I can’t even tell you much of everything that this blackness consumed. I used to see it, sure, but I didn’t think it would touch ME. I thought I would age into a version of myself that doesn’t get anxious, has plenty of money to spend, follows all of her dreams, and suffers zero health problems. I used to see bad things but I labeled them in my mind as “other people problems.” Now, there’s knowing they could be mine too and coming to terms with that.

Let me say, there are some benefits and advantages to being in crisis mode. It’s that you don’t put so much weight on everything because even if you suspect otherwise, there’s a part of you telling you that nothing you do matters anyway. And there’s no anxiety because what is there to be anxious about, if nothing really matters anyway? So even if you strongly suspect otherwise, and you know your world of color and love and hope and light, you can let this part of you drive the ship a little. Things that used to make you sick with nerves do less now. Things like going to the dentist or going to a photo job. And of course, it comes back in twos and fours. The care and the nerves and the details in every little leaf and every little kiss. They get locked in combat. It’s in the balance in the middle, between every little nothing and every little something. It’s the balance of caring a LOT, but not too much that it overwhelms you, or threatens to drown you.

Sometimes, you just wait. For what? For feeling color and heat again. And of course you do, and always will. With it, you may get back your anxiety and nerves and neuroses. This is ok, because somehow they’re superhero powers as well. They keep you high and alert and alive. They keep you as YOU. So you take time for grand gestures and small kindnesses. During the darkness you thought, “Why not, I guess?” And during the lightness you think, “Why not, indeed?” I just want to care even a little about everything and nothing at all. It trickles back in and colors the world.