Being a former (recovering? Am I allowed to call it that?) pathological liar, I’ve done a lot of work on speaking only what I mean and learning the real value of my words in the last few years, thanks to work with AA and The Four Agreements. (Yeah, turns out that people hold value with my words even when I didn’t… go figure.) These days there might be a completely-transparent white lie or mistake with planning here and there but, for the most part, I’m pretty good with my word in general. I don’t say things I don’t mean and, even though it sucks sometimes, I’m up front and honest about my shortcomings, opinions, and other things that might make life uncomfortable. When I say something, I say it with the intention of standing behind it, regardless of who hears/reads it and what repercussions might ensue. (For some reason, however, I tend to repeat myself a lot as if saying things once doesn’t make it real. It’s something I’ve worked for years to curb, but I’m one of those annoying people who makes sure things are stated more than once “just for the record”. So, maybe I’m still working to place exact value on words, still… ANYWAY…)

With this in mind, I find that I’m having a lot of trouble dealing with the idea of diplomacy. Here in the South, we’re very good at saying one thing to someone’s face and then saying something completely different behind their backs, which is a habit I’ve been working pretty hard to break. These days when I have something to say to someone, I say it right to them before taking it to anyone else, which often causes a lot of confusion as this seems to be outside of the norm. (Likewise, I tend to respect those who bring their problems with me to me before taking them elsewhere and am more likely to accept criticism this way than if I happen to hear it through gossip. This, too, seems to be a new concept to many people I’m around. Strange.) Additionally, if I don’t like someone, I’ve gotten better at not faking my way through a friendship like I used to. Granted, I’m not rude for the sake of being inappropriate, but I don’t go out of my way to make someone feel welcome around me if I personally can’t stand them. (Again, this is a bit of a taboo where I’m from and it’s something my mother is appalled by.)

I understand the need for diplomacy in business situations or in mixed company and I’m always striving to be as classy as possible (You can laugh at that. It’s okay.) when representing myself or my family, but I’m trying to learn the levels of diplomacy needed in intimate situations. And, for the most part, I do okay. There are always times in social situations where people say things I cannot stand by and agree with and I’ve made more than one social situation uncomfortable by vehemently opposing ignorant, idiotic, elitist views that groups I’ve been in have accepted as truths, but for the most part, I keep my mouth shut and do alright.

But this doesn’t translate so well when it comes to my personal relationships.

See, I don’t like being dishonest with my friends. I mean, that’s why we’re friends, right? So we don’t have to put on airs and fabricate realities around each other. Friends are there to let you see the reality around you and help you get through it and I believe in supporting and loving my friends unconditionally BUT I don’t believe in supporting them through everything if what they’re doing is destructive or plain idiotic. This has caused a lot of hardship in my friendships over the years but it’s something I continue to stand by. I mean, I’m not some sort of militant bitch with an agenda for purity, but if one of my friends is willingly putting him/herself in a stupid, potentially hurtful situation, I’m not cool with sitting by and letting that happen. Boneheaded and frivolous actions are one thing, but mindlessly self-deprecating are quite another. For example, if my friend wanted to call into work sick for a week so she could drive across the country to visit a wonderful man she was madly in love with then I’d be completely on board with her and would even give her a little gas money to send her on her way. But, if my friend was thinking about leaving her dream job because some asshole who had broken her heart a thousand times wanted them to “make a new start” in another city where he could chase his dream of being a stand-up comic, then I’d make sure she knew I thought it was moronic of her to consider it. Even as I write it, that seems brash, but frankly, I’d expect one of my friends to do the same. I mean, if I started drinking again and acting like a selfish bitch, I’d expect one of my friends to tell me she doesn’t support me and thinks I’m being a horrible person. I’d hope that she would give me support in recovery, but if she said she didn’t want anything to do with me while I was drinking then I’d understand. I, personally, have a hard time walking away from friends in need, so even if this friend DID leave to be with her stand-up-wannabe boyfriend, I’d be ready and waiting with my spare bedroom and some chocolate ice cream when/if things fell apart. (And, yeah, I’m still working on the “I told you so” reaction. Although it’s gotten significantly better over the years, it has a long way to go. I’ll be “healed” when I can resist the urge to ever say it, I think. Right now I’m still prone to mentioning it, although not right at the beginning.) And if, somehow, this boyfriend somehow pulled his head out of his ass and started treating her well and made her move worthwhile, then I’d eventually forgive him and support their relationship (which has actually happened, believe it or not.)

The point is, however, that my inability to withhold my opinions from my friends is something that troubles me. A lot. I’ve gotten better about not sharing my opinion unless asked for it, but I’m usually the one giving advice to friends that they should be listening to and then looking like an idiot when they do the exact opposite.

My main example of what I’m talking about is this: I had one of my best girlfriends wake up about a year-and-change ago to discover that her husband wasn’t only having his second affair, but he was stealing money from the family pot to blow up his nose, was drinking far more than she’d realized, and had lost 3 more jobs in the last two years than she’d known about. In the time that she was working on divorcing him, I was very supportive and continually told her how proud of her I was for getting out, getting a new job in a new city and doing what she needed to do to make her life free of this destructive man. I knew she was hurting from the demise of her marriage and the loss of a happiness she thought she was living, but I was supportive and encouraging, lending an ear when she needed to vent and sending her little tokens of love in the mail to let her know that she wasn’t alone. Now, she’s been living in a fabulous new house with her three kids and working a great new job for about six months, but she is getting back together with this man and I am terrified for her. She hasn’t asked me for my opinion on the matter, so I haven’t given it, and instead, I listen and nod when she tells me that “he’s doing better” and is apparently in AA and trying to piece his life back together while he lives with her and the kids on the weekends. I don’t tell her that in AA one of the beginning rules is to be sober for a year before trying to be in any sort of romantic relationship (I mean, I only made it about 7 months.) I don’t tell her that, no matter how sober or healthy this man gets, she can do better with someone she actually trusts and who won’t devastate her so badly every few years. I don’t tell her that I’m scared that she’s going to be dealing with this again in another 5 years when his penchant for cheating flares up again. I just smile and nod and tell her honestly that I wish her the best with this, because that’s the truth. But this sort of withholding makes me feel dishonest. It makes me feel like I’m not doing what I should as a friend or someone who loves her. Mostly, though, it makes me feel like there is a wall between my friend and myself where we can’t be as unabashedly explicit as we usually are together, which is something I’ve always loved about her and any of my closest friends.

And that’s where this feeling of loneliness comes in with regards to even my dearest of friends. If one of my best friends was getting into heavy drugs really badly, I’d break into her house and steal all her needles and spoons so she wouldn’t kill herself or become psychotic. If she was playing in the street with some kids and was about to get hit by a truck, I’d tackle her out of the way (and maybe the kids, too). I thought that’s what giving a shit about someone was all about; helping them when they’re not helping themselves. So why is it different when it comes to choices about love and life?

Xenocrates said “I have often regretted my speech, never my silences.” That was something my mom used to tell me when I was a babbly teenager who thought she knew everything and, for a while, I believed that. And then I read about all those people who have kept silent during truly evil happenings around the globe and I realized that Xenocrates was a coward. (Not that I’m comparing my conversations to friends with telling someone that the Holocaust is happening, though. It’s just an extreme example.)

I tell my best friend every time she calls and tells me about her most recent ailment that I think she’s making herself physically sick by not getting out and chasing her dream rightthissecond, but I fear that this drives a wedge between us because she may think I’m disappointed, when really, I’m just hopeful and confident in the potential her life holds. Even still, I worry I should back off, listen calmly and give my diplomatic, censored opinion only when asked for it. And I’m beginning to feel that, no matter how close I am to anyone, that that’s how I should live my entire life.

Still though, that doesn’t seem right. Even if my opinions/predictions/fears are completely and utterly wrong, I still feel it’s wrong to keep them completely to myself all the time in the name of “decency” and “manners”. This might make me a horrible person, but it’s the one embarrassing characteristic of mine that I think I’ll choose to stand behind.

I’m reading Kay Redfield Jamison’s An Unquiet Mind and loving it, which is strange because usually when I read memoirs about addiction or mental illness, I end up feeling worthless and trite. A lot of times I walk away from the book feeling empathic but completely useless as a writer, with the inherent knowledge that my illness is not only textbook, but has been discussed ad nauseum and, therefore, shouldn’t be blathered on again by myself or any other person remotely sharing in my general demographic characteristics. What I love about Jamison’s book is that she is a Doctor in psychiatry and yet, manages to speak about her illness as someone who has stepped around all the pretenses of what it means to have such a high social standing, bridging the gap between the Healer and the Unwell. She writes about emotions and mental sensations that I am entirely familiar with from a standpoint of a physician who fully understands her mental incapacities, but still doesn’t allow herself to bolster her tone with any ego or condescension. It’s really a fantastic work that I highly recommend anyone reading, whether or not they’ve been exposed to mental illness.

This being said, I’ve recognized in her writing that one of my new medications sends me into a light mania during the day. Granted, it’s not nearly intense enough to be classified as an actual manic spell and it wears off around the time that the extended-release capsule stops emitting drugs, but still, there’s a definite “high” that I experience during the day due to this drug. I am active and creative and productive, I get scores of things done and have wildly enthusiastic ideas about my potential, I feel great about life and where I am and who I am, and it’s like a completely new feeling for me to be flying so high and feeling so wonderfully optimistic. I’ve never suffered from any sort of mania at all if not chemically induced (read: illegally) and none so pure and bright as this and I’m really enjoying it. I love the feeling of accomplishment I feel at the end of a busy day and how bright, confident, and competent I magically seem in public. I love wanting to dance and sing and write and play all day and I love the palpable feeling of excitement and ambition that I feel when I start my mornings.

The problem, of course, is that I do tend to enjoy things that feel good to excess and I have this sneaking suspicion that this full-steam-ahead feeling that I experience during the day isn’t something I need to make permanent. Sure, it was good for drastically reversing my depression, getting me out of bed, making me a productive member of society, etc. but any more than this and I’ll slowly go to the other extreme of mood disorders and that’s not something I want to invite on myself when I’m doing so well. I’m supposed to be feeling happy and successful and confident because of the reality that I create, not the reality that pharmaceuticals create, right? I mean, I intend to stay on antidepressants, but the stimulant is something I know in my heart I need to get away from eventually if I want to be truly happy and healthy.

Damned morals.

Jamison talks about adoring her manic spells because she felt like she was floating up and away past the rings of Saturn, feeling like a million bucks and hurdling herself headlong into life. Aside from her manic spending-sprees and overzealous behaviors that she exhibited during her manias, she really enjoyed the feeling of invincibility and bliss that came with mania and really missed these when she started to level out. I never thought that such a notion would apply to me, but it does right now.

Now is when all that AA training steps in and takes over, because if it was up to me, I’d let myself feel maniacally exhuberant every day for the rest of my life and just deal with the inevitable crashes in mood that come later on. But instead, I made a commitment to being healthy and finding balance, and so that’s what I’m working toward, even though I have to give up the first consistent, productive rapture I’ve ever felt to do it.

Damned morals.

My parents always told me that in life, I’d only be able to count my real friends on one hand. They lied.

Somehow, I’ve been blessed with two handfuls of friends who have stuck with me through all the utter insanities of my recovery and still arrive on my doorstep, undefeated and unflinchingly optimistic about me, my potential, and my life. A few of these friends have called me “friend” since I was an early adolescent, a few have known me for the better part of a decade, and a few have only been on board for a few years, but many have seen me at my lowest and most destructive points and still have the audacity to argue that I’m worth sticking around for.

Being that I don’t enjoy the company of idiots or apathetic losers, I have always had friends for whom I keep a slight envy in their beauty, talent, wit, character, charm, intellect, or style. I have many friends that I often consider to be too rad to be hanging out with the likes of me and I’ve found myself questioning their judgment in keeping me in their social circle. This being said, I’m always amazed and floored when these people continually rush to my side, offer me forgiveness, cheer for my successes, and send me expressions of their love. For some reason, these two-handfuls of friends seek to sap none of my energy, ask for none of my possessions, fuel none of my drama, and honestly want nothing from me except my happiness and company. When I’m not sitting around feeling unworthy and scared of ruining everything, I realize that I am tremendously, unbelievably blessed.

It’s not as if I’ve sat around collecting friends during my life, either. From the time I could speak, I’ve slapped the “best friend” label on a series of close female figures in hopes of finding that one, ideal companion. I can name at least two people I called my “BFF” for every year I was in grade school, in fact. (Sadly, because these relationships were based in my inherent fear of loneliness, they crumbled and were swept away, and to this day, I only correspond with two of the many that I hoped would fill this role. I’ve had countless friends that I’ve broken ties with in the notion that their appeal wasn’t so much real as it was fabricated by my own insecurities and I spent a lot of time in my early stages of recovery sure that I wasn’t going to resonate with anyone ever… I know, waahh…) I’m not one of those people who has pictures of her best friends throughout our various growth stages scattered throughout the house, and most of my very dearest friends don’t even know the others (although the ones that do get along smashingly.)

But when I look back on my life, there are always those faces that stick out in the crowd. Even if our relationship has been based on annual visits and/or emails and phone calls, these are the people that have rushed to my side when I was sickest or sent their love and support when I announced my pregnancy. These are the people I’m not afraid to call at 2 a.m. when my mind is threatening me again and the ones I expect 2 a.m. phone calls from when they’re standing 10 feet away from David Bowie at the Tower Records in Dublin. These are the ones I would have taken out a loan for to fly them from Australia to be bridesmaids in my wedding (had we taken that route in our nuptial celebrations) and the ones who bring me tabloids and Milanos when I’m still at the hospital, agonizing over an abrupt C-section and dying to show off my new daughter. (Or text me while I’m getting an epidural with messages of hope and “I TOLD you that shit hurts!”)

Although I have family and my dear husband and my daughter around me daily, bolstering my confidence and guiding me through the nitty-gritty steps of this perpetual daily recovery, I cannot help but feel overwhelming joy at the notion that I have at least two handfuls of friends who, out of no obligation whatsoever, are choosing to continue standing right behind me.*

*You know if I’m talking about you. Thank you.

Dear Kathleen, Haylee, Vee, Grim, Shannon, Hayley, Caroline, Brody, Debra, Abby, Becky B., CV/Mary, Blair, Martha, Rob, Daisy and, of course, Allison and Greg,

I know this may seem a bit random, but sometime in my life you, in some form, sent me a piece of encouragement and love that not only resonated with me, but stuck with me until now. Perhaps it was something specific that you said or wrote to me, or maybe it was a small gift or something else tangible, but whatever the case, this tiny token of love was saved in a small box that I keep in my home.

Recently, I’ve been having more than a little trouble with my head and the medications I’ve been prescribed to try to fix whatever’s been going on up there. Late at night, when I’m feeling hollow and scared and lonely, I’ve been retreating to this box to reread your words of encouragement, listen to your mix tapes, laugh over our shared jokes, look at pictures of your art, and experience your ever-present support and kindness. This has become a once-or-twice-weekly ritual and it has settled my racing heart and been an ideal remedy to help me get to sleep on these seemingly chaotic nights. Additionally, it has, actually, been the most effective method I’ve ever found at calming myself down, streamlining my scattered focus, and getting back to my normal self. No matter what despairing, hopeless hole my subconscious tries to bury my consciousness in, I am always able to pull myself out with the love and encouraging sentiments I’ve collected over the years.

Thank you sincerely. I do so hope to have the opportunity to repay this tremendous gift to each of you sometime in my life.

Castallare

I’m effing exhausted from soaring emotionally upward and then crashing down so often in the course of a week, all because of the new drugs I’ve been trying for the last couple months. I’ve never had bipolar tendencies in that when I get depressed, it lasts a longlong time and then I come out of it and return to my normal self for a while. I’ve never been manic except in short half-hour bursts and only if/when caffeine/other substances are involved, so that’s been ruled out of my diagnosis as well. However, with this new medicine, I’m very up and cheery and perky and uberproductive and optimistic and creative and perfect during the day until that inevitable instance once or twice a week when I plummet back to rock bottom. (And if I’ve had caffeine at all during the day my meds decide to pull the rug out from under me, the depression is even more exacerbated and hopeless.) This constant up-and-down has never happened to me before [yes, even when I was drinking] and, I have to say, I’m not fond of it. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE how I feel when the medication is in full swing and I’m bright and perky and everything seems beautiful and wonderful, but the comedown seems hardly worth it if it’s risking my sanity every few days. That’s not really a decent trade-off in my book. I want to be leveled-out, even if that means not feeling blissful on a daily basis. Euphoria’s fun and all, but the nature of a balanced universe insists that I have to come back to reality and, frankly, I’d rather just live in real emotion with natural peaks and valleys than these drug-motivated ones.

So, even though I received some really very cool, really very hopeful, really very dream-fulfilling news about my professional life last night and had a genuinely great evening, I still sat in the darkness of my house feeling empty and scared and alone until 2 a.m. when I finally meditated myself into a restless sleep. And it wasn’t based in anything at all, [not even those ridiculous self-loathing mantras my sick brain likes to repeat to itself during my bouts... I think they were taking the night off] which is more evidence that these deep crevices are purely from the drugs. That ain’t right.

Auuughh.. I’d like to be fixed now.

It never ceases to amaze me how one whole week of Feeling Really Great and Being All Productive can be completely obliterated by one single evening of Shaking, Sobbing, Deteriorating Crazy that just descends on me from out of nowhere. Nothing caused it, mind you. My mind isn’t off beating itself up for sucking in general, I’m not sad about any certain, specific thing; I just started sinking and couldn’t pull up out of it. So, instead I sat on the couch in a tight little ball all evening, trying to focus on a movie that Greg put in for us and wringing my hands like I’d just snorted a line while little white flashes of light darted around my periphery for no reason. Occasionally, I’d need to inhale so abruptly that Greg would dive to my side to make sure I was okay like I was on the brink of dying. (Poor guy; three months of this has to be making him wonder why he’s married me.)

————————————————-

Okay, God,

 I’m exhausted with this now. I know I’m not one to argue with your judgment but seriously? Haven’t I done this enough? I’ve worked my ass off this round, not sitting back and taking it or drinking myself into dysfunction. I’ve been charitable and objective about my needs in recovery and I’ve changed my meditation and medication and eating habits and gone out and gotten some physical activity and rerouted my focus and talked to my therapist and gone to a different doctor and gotten out of the house to do things that I like and expressed gratitude and appreciation when I could and made amendments where I felt I needed to (no matter how outdated) and read scripture and self-help books and been still and tried to let You talk to me and had friends come to visit and literally every-fucking-thing I can think of to put into motion my feeling better and expedient recovery. I’ve held up my end of the bargain… 

…So, for fuck’s sake could I please just go for one whole week (or two) without contemplating opening a vein or overdosing on sleeping pills and wine in my bathtub? I’m literally begging You now. I haven’t had a week like that since early September, which is bullshit in itself because it almost completely wrecked the time around my wedding. (The week in Hawaii was bliss, mind you, if only I could have staved off those sleepless early mornings of quivering in my neuroses that I tried to hide from Greg in an attempt to keep him from worrying about anything on our heavenly honeymoon.) I mean, I don’t want to get all vindictive and fist-shaking and screaming stuff like “YOU OWE ME RESTITUTION!” but dammit, would it really damage me and my personal character development to be completely content and catch my breath for just a little while? I’m just wondering.

I appreciate Your consideration and expedient response in this matter.

Ever Patiently,

Castallare

I was once in love with a man who exclaimed that I was quirky. Like most of his statements, his tone was nearly impossible to decipher and, after he left me, I opted to think that he saw these quirks as flaws. So, I hid these away for a few years, terrified that these same quirks would drive away other loves that crossed my paths [instead of maybe admitting that he was just a cowardly, self-servicing, calculating man without the slightest clue how to connect with humans on an emotional level because he's too busy trying to fling everything into a logical, scientific forum... No, I'm not bitter.] When I met my husband, I was petrified that my dark past, in addition to my plethora of seemingly harmless quirks, would inevitably drive him away. They didn’t. (When I tried dumping all my flaws and quirks and neuroses into his lap to try to sabotage things, he finally looked right at me and calmly stated, “You’re not going to scare me off if that’s what you’re trying to do.” This is among the higher numbers in the Top 20 Reasons I Married Him list. He’s that good.)

Since we’ve been together, I’ve started recovering these quirks and exploring them, weeding through them and seeing which actually embody my tendencies and which are unhealthy habits I could do without. Here are three that I’ve recently rediscovered about myself that I’m hanging onto:

I love driving around and looking at Christmas lights… by myself…for hours.

This personal tradition started with my father, who would always take the time for a detour on the way home from anywhere during the holiday season to look at Christmas lights. My mother never allowed any outstanding Christmas decorations and limited our household holiday decor to a tree, a wreath, and candles in the windows. Every time we passed a gaudy, overlit house, my dad would chuckle to himself and stare in childish wonder of every Griswoldian spectacle, the envy of such freedom sparkling cheerfully in his eyes. As I got older, he and I were the only ones who enjoyed driving around for hours as it seemed everyone else had someplace more important to be. Soon, we were having to schedule annual dates a week before Christmas for the exclusive purpose of looking at lights and then there were years where we never saw them together at all.

When I moved home in 2003, I found myself very very alone in my drunken insanity. I had successfully pushed all my family away from me and staring at Christmas lights seemed too intimate and a little too embarrassing to share with anyone else. For many many December evenings, I’d fill a Nalgene bottle with Bailey’s and ice, wrap up in a warm coat, find my Charlie Brown Christmas CD and take myself for a drive, often staying out for more than 3 hours, driving, smoking, singing, and crying into my chilled wassail at the beauty that surrounded me and the joy that seemed to elude me. It was dangerous and reckless and unbelievably pathetic and kinda insane in retrospect, but those nights were the highlight of that dark year. In years following this, I would sometimes “treat” myself to a night off the wagon, slowly perusing quiet neighborhoods and parking my car in front of the tackiest of houses to bask in the lights and try to immerse myself in whatever Christmas was. AGAIN, it was dangerous and reckless and unbelievably pathetic and kinda insane in retrospect, but those nights were the highlights of my darkest Decembers.*

In the time I’ve actively embraced sobriety (you know, without just telling everyone that’s what I was doing), I’ve found that I can contain my excitement for Christmas lights about as easily as I could for a surprise gift of a million bucks. I’m always grateful that sobriety has brought my family back emotionally, as they now ride with me enough to allow me to take indirect routes home to ogle the various electric expressions of holiday celebrators.

Say what you will about the ridiculous overcommercialization of Christmas and how a giant, inflatable Mickey Mouse-dressed-as-Santa has nothing to do with the “real meaning” or how computer-programmed twinkle lights are impairing society’s ability to focus on Our Lord Little Baby Jesus Christ. Nothing makes me feel more childlike than staring at the sparkling spectacles created by overzealous Christmas fans, beseeching passing cars to take a moment to crack a smile and remember joy in it’s most basic, ridiculous, aesthetic form.

Last year I took myself on my solitary drive to sing Christmas songs to the baby inside me and explain to her what this swelling joy was in the atmosphere around her. This year I cannot wait to capture her reaction as she experiences it for herself.

*I don’t advocate drunk driving and I fully acknowledge that my doing so on so many occasions was extremely selfish and wrong. Even though I was never caught and never hurt anyone, it is still something I’m very ashamed to have done so willingly and frequently.

I have a problem with false nostalgia

The fact that I’m a Memory Lane junkie is no secret. I could sit around and reminisce everysingleday with those who inevitably haven’t thought about the past in years and years. In the advent of networking sites, this habit of mine has gone into overdrive in the last few years, seeing me delving into old relationships and old scenarios that simply don’t exist anymore. Gross. Anyway, I’ve curbed my need to indulge in memory so often on a public forum (even though “The inward eye is the bliss of solitude”, you know) but I think I’ve channelled that need for nostalgia to revisiting the past that I wasn’t a part of.

Heh?

I’ve always liked looking through old photos of my family during times that wasn’t around, which I don’t think is entirely unnatural. I love looking at my parents when they were younger and going through the drawers and boxes full of cluttered photographs at my Gran’s house to obtain clues about who my family were and eventually are. I kind of become manic about it, actually, taking time every other year or so to just peruse through forgotten photos and scrapbooks for an entire day and getting lost in memories and eras that I was never a part of.

This weird desire lives on a bigger level, too, in that I love watching old movies for their social commentary and the reality that Hollywood wanted us to embody and remember about this time. Additionally, I love reading about how people lived in their day-to-day lives in the past. It feels voyeuristic, but I love learning about people’s various quirks or the things that made them outstanding or boring. I love reading about what made Lucy and Desi Arnaz actual pioneers in both comedy and television even though their show seems so silly and trite to me today. I love trying to understand the mentalities of the average person during the most tumultuous times in history and how every one of society’s heroes had normal neuroses and quirks just like the rest of us. Like that Beethoven was apparently filthy and wouldn’t leave his room in the palace for weeks, covering the walls in scribbled music and covering his floors in rotting food and feces. (The royal administration would move him to a different studio each month to clean and air out the old one.) Or that Juliette Gordon Lowe dragged Rudyard Kipling out of a party she deemed as boring to go fishing in their formal wear.

A couple years ago, I came across an old 8mm projector and about 80 reels from a family that lived in Miami during the late 1950’s. I wanted to make a project of acquiring clues from the videos and eventually finding the family that would know those involved in the film, but this massive undertaking only lasted a few months before I became distracted by outside influences. However, while I still plan to eventually find the family eventually, I’ve found that I love watching these reels to peer into the past of a genuinely average mid-century American family. It’s amazing how they all look exactly like all the fake reels that cinema and television have recreated in the years since this era and I delight at watching women leave the house in pearls, dresses, hats and gloves and tinsel-covered Christmas mornings and burly men wearing short shorts and heavily-gelled hair while smoking a cigarette next to some infant. It’s fascinating and I hate that these videos contain no sound as I’d love to hear the dialogue and language of these people as well. This voyeuristic collection of mine is by far one of the most intriguing possessions I own.

I don’t know if I enjoy looking into the past for purely voyeuristic reasons or if I’m some sort of whacked-out history buff but, either way, this is a part of myself I hope doesn’t fade. I just wish there was some sort of career I had immediate access to that would allow me to explore this further. Like being a video librarian at a massive archive. Although I’m sure I’d sit in an editing room all day waiting to hear someone say something inappropriate or laughing when someone farted. This, I feel, is the humanity that unites us all.

I need to feel like I have enough.

This one doesn’t warrant an essay, but I’ve always felt like I can’t let things run low. I have to keep my possessions stocked at all times, I have to feel like there’s enough of something when I need it. I can’t let my gas gauge get less than a half-tank full without refilling it, I can’t let any makeup or bathroom products or food supply reach anywhere near scant proportions, I can’t let the laundry go without being done for over 4 days…

I think I have a problem with dealing with the tail-end of things. I always write in notebooks until there are a few pages left and then I abandon them, I never eat the last slice of bread or Lean Cuisine in the fridge, I can’t finish one tube of toothpaste unless there’s another already laid out.

Hunh… I’m weird.

… ambitious though my cause for worldly understanding may be, I didn’t take into consideration that I’ve been Americanized my entire life and may have a hard time immediately adjusting to just a drastic diet change.

Imagine that.

Forgetting the obvious fact that jumping from a 1,500-calorie diet to a 400-calorie diet overnight could take serious tolls on my overall health, I eagerly jumped on board with my Poverty Diet and found that vitamin and herbal supplements weren’t doing much to combat the EFFING CRAZIES that came around at about 8 p.m. By the second day the lightheadedness and drifting consciousness got to be too much, and, as Evil Slutopia mentioned I had to take my well-being as a parent into consideration.

I’m still trying the diet changes for meditational purposes, but I’m pacing myself a little better this time as, after all, the people I’m focusing on have lived with these conditions for a very long time and their bodies have become acclimated to taking in this amount of food. Even though many people are slowly starving to death, their bodies function differently than an American who is mostly sedentary and takes in 3-5 times as many calories each day. I have to keep that in mind if I’m going to keep myself functioning.

Right now I’m doing one rice-or-beans-or-oats meal a day and skipping snacks during the day, so I feel the hunger that was my intended purpose for meditation, anyway. I may move this to two and then three meals a day, but keeping my health in mind is my responsibility, second to Chloe’s.

It’s weird; this is another one of those things that I could’ve easily suffered through just a couple years ago. Greg and I have discussed that we’d definitely be willing to live a poor, bohemian, starving-artist lifestyle without question if we didn’t have Chloe to worry about, but I kinda thought that only pertained to life on a larger scheme. We’d think about that when choosing houses and neighborhoods and what she eats and cars, but I didn’t think it would affect even the little things like what I was putting into my body on a daily basis.

Hunh.

I feel like I’ve been working tirelessly to battle my depression this round, but nothing has working to snap me out of The Pits effectively enough to motivate me to work through it to begin with and I’ve been struggling with how to get a little instant happiness to push me to work for eventual happiness. Chocolates and cigarettes don’t work, really, and watching sitcom reruns requires too much spare time and other counterparts. And then this week, my friend Hayley and I developed something revolutionary that has proven effective on a number of levels. In fact, it’s so effective we’re thinking about applying for a patent and opening a counseling center together.

My friend Hayley and I met when we were mutually bored out of consciousness in a particularly atrocious Shakespeare class, taught by one of the country’s oldest professors who, in his tenure, believes that education consists of asking young adults to read great literary works aloud and then comparing them to his various fishing adventures. (True story.) Like the female Statler and Waldorf of the English Department, Hayley and I quickly became fuel for each other’s comic relief, laughing at the social ineptitude of our varied peers, seeing how long we could flash the aforementioned professor without being caught (the answer: for ever, apparently,) and annoying the everliving crap out of everyone who was “there to learn.” Over time, I began to look forward to our interactions and would drag myself to this otherwise mundane class just to treat myself to like-minded sarcasm and an outlet for my running commentary.
In the months during these classes, we had no conversation outside school, but when we ran into each other at next semester’s Scandinavian Film and Literature course, we immediately chose seats next to each other to begin our usual routine. Somehow, that semester turned out a little differently. Maybe it was the expository nature of the film and literature discussed in class, maybe it was our comfort levels in our close contact, maybe it was in the cards, maybe it was just who we were, but whatever the case, she and I became quick friends. Actually, she was among the first I told when I learned I was unexpectedly pregnant at the very end of that semester.

Since graduation, Hayley and I have stayed in touch, making time to get together for lunch, driving the hundred-some miles between each other’s homes to see her new house or attend my bachelorette party. In our monthly phone-calls and bimonthly visits, she has become one of my dearest friends, partially because we have the same sarcastic holier-than-thou-but-not-really-but-maybe-a-little humor and have similar struggles as mothers/students/women, but mostly because I look up to her so very much and am always inspired by her ongoing courage and self-actualization. Plainly stated, she rocks.

In the whirlwind of running off to get married (me) and starting a job as a schoolteacher in a new town (her), we sort of fell out of touch for a couple of months and set a phone date for last Sunday. During this phone conversation we covered the usual “How-are-you-who-are-you-seeing-these-days?” bases and then I started rambling about my depression and what’s been going on in my head for the last couple months. Hayley listened and responded accordingly, offering support and stating that there were a lot of things about my thoughts and struggles that mirrored hers at my age (although she’s only 7 years older than me). These, of course, were all naturally comforting things to hear from her as a friend…

… And then she started talking about herself in how pathetically hilarious her thoughts during depression has been in retrospect…

…And making fun of herself…

… And, for some reason, I started laughing harder than I have in months. I jumped on the bandwagon, too, “Mreughhh.. I’m so saaaad. Look at meeee, I’m feeling so bad, I’m just going to lay in bed and cry about how much I suck.”

Hayley cackled and passed one back: “Muuhhhh, I’m not a size six so I must reeeally suck. Maybe I’ll sit on my front steps and cry like someone kicked my puppy.”

Soon, tears were streaming through my mascara as I chuckled and then really started delving into the various mantras I utilize during my deepest bouts of depression, putting on my best 3rd Grade Bully Voice during each of them:

“Uhhhhn, I’m Liiiiz. I’m twenty pounds overweight, so maybe I should eat this whole can of icing; that’ll fix eeeeverything. I eat my feeeelings.”

“Waaaaahhhh, I had a full college education paid for by my daddy but I feel inferior because it’s not the school I waaanted to go to.”

“I’m Liiiiz, I sit around in my nice house with my pretty baby and my sweet husband and cry because I don’t think I’m pretty or smart.”

Even now as I’m writing, I’m smiling giddily and remembering how ruthless we were on ourselves, mocking ourselves the same way we mock stupid people we happen to pass in public or celebrities who whine publicly. But somehow, mocking ourselves was so so much funnier than any time we’d ever made fun of any other poor soul who’d ever crossed our paths. This time, it was personal… and effing hilarious.

Soon, we were thinking of ways to incorporate this into a new method of recovery, experimenting with our method in fake scenarios and cackling at how controversial and hysterical our new psychological movement would be. We imagined ourselves summing up our self-loathing clients and dismissing them in disgust:

“‘Waaahhh. I’m a white, middle-class guy living in America and I eat too much and drop out of college because my dad never hugged me enough.’ GAH! You know what?! Here’s your check back, you whiner. Get the hell out of my office.”

It’s completely irrational and will never work on a grand scheme, but, after I hung up the phone with her, I realized how amazing I felt. And I wondered how effective this method would be as a quick-fix. What if I took all the things that I usually repeat relentlessly in my head during my bouts of self-loathing misery and stated them bluntly and mockingly? Sure, that sounds really self-destructive from the onset, but, in the last two days, I’ve started dubbing Hayley’s prepubescently-antagonizing tone over my usual self-depreciative thoughts and immediately blocking myself from starting that whole cycle of guilt, remorse, sadness, etc. It seems rather unorthodox and potentially dangerous if I let it get out of control, but for now it’s providing me with a diversion and a smile and that’s a change I’m very welcome of right now. It’s actually saving me a bunch of time and energy mentally and, Christ, that’s a relief.

And who would have thought that being a relentlessly mocking, sarcastic bitch would help me feel better about myself? Hunh!