I Confess Where I am, and Where "It" Is, and How I'm Just Mad About Saffron

A year has passed since I wrote this post (you might want to go ahead and read that if you haven't yet), where I discussed my battle with depression and gave to it the name "It." Here is where I am and where "It" is now...



Depression, or "It," as I call it, is still here, still my worse half, still a thorn in my side. However, most -- most of the time -- I can experience my day and really and truly say, "I'm OK." On other days, when It is trying hard to get the best of me, I have to be adamant and say, "I'M OK, GOSH-DARNIT!" And then there are those occasional days when It has been relentless, when It has truly seeped into my core, when It won't stand down, and I have to concede, "No. I'm definitely not OK today."

All of those things are perfectly normal, whether one has It or not. It's just that the "definitely not OK" days are tougher for those of us who have to withstand It on a daily basis. Even on the good days, smiling is an effort that forces me to confront and manipulate every muscle in my face.

Still, I press on. As I mentioned in my post a year ago, I continue to choose not to take any prescription medicine for depression or anxiety. I had some success taking Sam-e and 5-htp at different times. However, I now choose to take a saffron supplement. Saffron -- who knew? It is marketed as an appetite suppressant, but in truth, I can't tell a difference in how much I eat (bummer). Though I've only been taking it for a few weeks, I can tell that my moods are much more amiable. I wake up a little less dependent on my cup of coffee to feel like a human being, although I still drink it every morning. (You didn't think I'd give up coffee, did you? As if.) I can carry through my day with much less anxiety and moodiness than before. My outlook is generally more pleasant, and I feel that I'm able to accomplish more of my goals, both long- and short-term.

In addition to taking saffron, I have tried various approaches for depression management over the last months...

* Journaling is particularly useful, and it couldn't be easier. I find it comforting at the end of the day to simply jot down a line or two about my day, focusing especially on the good parts. It hasn't taken long to amass a catalog of the good things going on in my life, and it is revitalizing to flip back through those pages, particularly when I've had a downer of a day.

* The cleaner I eat, the better I feel. I tried the "Eat To Live" diet for a time, and honestly, (I am having a revelation as I type this) I don't know why I quit! I felt FABULOUS -- better than I had in years. The weight loss was just a fringe benefit. My book must be around here somewhere...

* I take walks as often as I can. Walking is a great way to clear my head and shake out whatever stress is weighing on me. As with eating clean, the physical benefits are just gravy. Plus, I find that if my motivation for exercise is for mental clarity more than for physical perks, I'm more likely to make the time to do it.

Managing depression is doable if you make the choice -- every single day -- to be proactive about it, and that goes for people who take prescription drugs as well as for people like me who steer clear of them. Taking care of our whole selves -- mind, body, and spirit -- is the key. 

This

Just throwing this into the proverbial void...


Because I'm so very awake; because I feel like sharing; because I need this...




Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.
~Attributed to St. Francis~



Keep watch. dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love's sake. Amen.
~Book of Common Prayer~

The Big Four-OHHHHHHHHH

I'll turn forty tomorrow. FORTY. Holy liver spots, Bat Man! So naturally, while 40 is staring me in the face, I'm taking time today to look at 39.



Here is what I know, in no particular order...



I know that on the inside, I still feel like a 14 year old. I just don't have as much energy.



I know that friendships come and go. You fall out of touch with lifelong friends for various reasons; you make new friends; you rekindle an old friendship -- so on and so forth. I never thought I'd be quoting Will Smith, but I thought this was right on the money: "Don't chase people. Be yourself, do your own thing and work hard. The right people...the ones who really belong in your life, will come to you. And stay."



I know that our time here on earth is damned short. It doesn't matter if you live to be 19 or 99. Life is short. So do what makes you happy and try to be a blessing to those around you. Start with the people that live with you and go from there.



I know that if it won't grow in your yard, you probably shouldn't eat it.



I know there is a God.



I know that marriage is hard and wonderful. I know who my soul mate is.
I know who I belong to and who belongs to me, no matter what. And the institution of marriage is most certainly not *just* a piece of paper.



I know that parenthood is both everything and nothing it's cracked up to be.
I know that it's huge (you've created a life that didn't exist before, and now you have to nurture it), yet it's all about the so-called "little things" that happen every day (bedtime stories, bandaids and boo-boos, bath time, kisses and hugs, bumped noggins, potty training...I could go on all day...). And that thing about living vicariously through your children...don't do that. That's awful. Expose them to as many things as you can, see where their natural talents lie, and, for Pete's sake, let them be who they are.



I know that I'm still learning, and there are times when I wonder if I really know anything for certain at all. But not knowing has its charms. Not knowing can be liberating. Not knowing means I'm still learning, still growing, still evolving. And I don't really want to know everything anyway. I like a good mystery.



I know that The Beatles, for me at least, still reign supreme. Don't misunderstand me. I love all kinds of music. But I ALWAYS go back to The Beatles (referred to in my house as "my boys").



I know that there cannot POSSIBLY be enough time in my life to read all the books I want to read or hear all the music I want to hear. There's just so much! And I want it all -- my lists of books and music is never-ending.



I know that aging is OK. It really is. I have to give credit to my friend Peter for introducing me to what the philosopher, Cicero, said about aging. In his essay, De Senectute, he said, "If you feel I am aging well, it is because I regard nature as the best guide in all things and obey her like God. If she has done such a good job with all the other stages in my life, the final act is unlikely to be an afterthought as though from the hand of an inept scribbler." In other words, we're going to get wrinkles and gray hair. We're going to get sick, gain weight, lose weight, lose hearing, lose sight, lose muscle, gain more weight, sleep less, sleep more. And all those things are natural and we can choose to fight them whitened tooth and manicured nail, or we can choose to experience those things from a place of grace. I'm trying to choose the graceful way.



...but I'm still going to color my hair a while longer...don't judge me.

Preschool Jitters

OK...I knew this was inevitable. Knew this day would come. Had NO idea I'd react this way.




I've been online looking at preschools for my four year old.




And I'm pretty sure I'm dying.






Dying, I tell you.




Mark and I have talked about this for a long while now. Parker is four years old; he's been at home all this time; he'll start Kindergarten when he's five or six (he has a June birthday, so I'm more concerned with his maturity level rather than his actual age to determine when he'll start "real" school); he needs to be around kids his age and size; he needs to learn to interact under a set of rules different from mine; blah blah blah. So I devoted some time this morning to research preschools in my area. I plugged information in a Google search and different schools popped up and BAM! Major freakin' anxiety attack, man! My heart started pounding, my stomach felt sick, my breathing increased, my thoughts raced, my eyes stung with tears.


Seriously???


I called my husband for reassurance. He reiterated all the things I mentioned above; how we agreed now's the time; how this will be good for him; how this will be good for me too; how he says all the time that he wants to go school; blah blah blah.

He also said, "...and you've been with him since the day he was born..."
Not helping, dude. Nice try, though.

I had no trouble sending my oldest to preschool. I was a teacher there, and his classroom was right next door to mine. I could feel pretty good about that. Sending him to public school Kindergarten was no problem either. We live in a small town that has an excellent primary school, and he had a wonderful experience there. But when Parker came along, I quit working altogether so that I could stay at home with my boys. I have cherished this time more than I can put into words. Here go the waterworks again. Anyway...

Maybe my anxiety comes from Parker being my last child -- my baby. Maybe it's because this house will be too quiet without one or both of my boys in it. Maybe it's that I'm scared to be by myself, even for a few hours a day. Maybe there's things I don't want to own up to that I dare not address here. Maybe I like making excuses.

It will all turn out to be a good thing though, won't it -- sending Parker to preschool? Mark said if he had a hard time or flat out didn't like it, then we could always take him out. And I only want something for half a day, maybe even only a couple of days a week. This is doable. I can handle this. Inhale. Exhale.

Because I HAD to Peck Something Out

Well, gee whiz! I was just looking at my blog and realized there was no entry yet for the year 2013. For shame! So I'm sitting here at my keyboard pecking *something* out...

I'm still here, still alive and kicking. 2013 has been good so far. I've lost a little weight, thanks to my mother getting me a great book called Eat To Live. There's lots of good information and recipes in there. Following this plan has tremendously helped with my depression, so the weight loss is just gravy :)

I haven't been "eating to live" for the last two weeks or so, though. While I haven't gained back any of my lost weight, depression has ceremoniously kicked my ass a time or two. Those days are HARD. Those are the days when I tell my husband, "Bring home Chinese food for dinner -- I ain't cooking. Or cleaning. Or generally acting like a human being." But rough days such as that are becoming far and few in between, especially when I eat clean. So life goes on, thankfully.

I have found myself missing my sweet friend, Chris Wilson, a lot lately. What a precious soul! I was able to spend some time with my friend Donnie (a/k/a Pookie) this month, and found that he'd been missing him too. I like to think that we notice Chris' absence most during the times when he's keeping an eye on us. Maybe that's why we sense him so much, because he's nearer. I do not claim to have the whole death-and-afterlife thing figured out, but I do believe that the veil is thin. And sometimes, and in some places, it is thinner than in others.

I have lots of blog posts cooking in my head -- a great new restaurant, a visit to the Buford Highway International Market, how the FDA bothers me, writers conferences -- so there will be more confessions from this ordinary person coming soon...

xoxo,
Melanie

Naked, Zygote, and Sex! Oh My!

A few weeks ago, my son came home with a "behavior notification." All the third grade students had been given dictionaries. He had gotten into trouble for looking up the word "naked" and pointing it out to a nearby friend. Evidently, some of the other boys started looking up what his teacher referred to as
"other ugly words." All those boys' dictionaries were taken away from them. I won't get into my and my husband's feelings over this. Suffice it to say, we don't think "naked" is an "ugly word," so we both disagreed for the action our son's teacher took against him. And that's all I will say about that. Maybe in another blog post I'll rattle out my frustration. Or perhaps I'll work it out in some journaling that I will never publish. Maybe I should throw my fists into a few pillows. Grrr.

Sorry. Anyway...

A few days later, I was in Barnes and Noble, and I found Webster's Dictionary for Students . I showed it to my husband, Mark, and he jokingly asked if it had the word "naked" in it. I had already checked for that, and I assured him it was in there; it was right in between "naive" and "name." Mark said, "Good! Let's give it to him."



I adore that man :)



I brought it home to Nicholas, and I as I gave it to him, I said, "This is YOUR dictionary, and you can ask your dad or me about ANY word in this book, any time you want to." He grinned. I basked in the glow of that proud, parental moment. He found a pen and wrote his name in the cover (that's MY baby!). And he sat down the next day reading it like it was from the Magic Tree House series (that's also MY baby). He hasn't read the whole thing cover to cover, and I doubt he ever will. But I love that he loves it, and I know he will use it a lot over the coming years.

Then what did the boy do? He brought the dictionary to me and said, "Mom, the definition of the very last word is interesting. Look at this." I couldn't wait to see what he thought was so interesting. When a child shows you what is intriguing to him, it is a peek inside his brain -- his world. I feasted my eyes on the last word and beheld the word "zygote."

Zygote?


(sigh)


Yep. ZYGOTE.


zy-gote n : the new cell produced when a sperm cell joins with an egg


My husband and I looked at each other, both of us speaking with our eyes..."REALLY? We're gonna go *there* now? NOW?! That's just great...we've made our bed, and now we've gotta lie in it..."


Mercy.


Nicholas asked what that definition meant. Mark told Nicholas that that's how he got here. And I said that puppies, goats, whales, and all other animals and humans got here that way too. These answers satisfied our own little "zygote," and that was the end of that.




Or so I thought.



A week or so later, we were sitting in the living room. My beloved third grader looked at me and mentioned, casually, that a fellow student said something about "s-e-x." Trying to seem unaffected, I said, "Sex? What did he have to say about it?" Nicholas told me not much, mainly that the said student declared that (male sew-n-sew) had "done it" with (female sew-n-sew).


!      !      !      !      !      !      !      !      !      !      !      !      !      !      !      !     


We now had Mark's attention. I suggested we turn off the television so we could talk. Then I, now clearly affected, asked my eight year old offspring what he thought "did it" meant. He said, "Mom, you don't want to know."






I die.






A very long, delicate, compassionate conversation ensued. I won't go into too many gory details. Mark and I did the best we could. And so did Nicholas. I'm so proud of him. I'm proud of the three of us. We sat down together and had a calm, honest discussion about the things Nicholas had been hearing at school, and what he thought of all that. Given, he didn't say too much -- he felt too embarrassed to voice certain things at this point. And we didn't force him to do so. But we did assure him that A) Most of what he's going to hear from kids his age about sex is most likely untrue, and B) He can come to us at ANY time and ask us ANYTHING about sex, and that he will never be in trouble with us for doing that. We promised to always be honest with him. We told him that sex is not a bad thing; that sex is what brought him to us. I cannot say that any of this was easy, but we handled it.

Is there some part of parenting that is easy? Because if there is some easy part I can look forward to, I wish someone would tell me all about it.

I know there will be more conversations about sex when Nicholas is ready.
I hope he will come to his father and me when he has questions. And I really think he will.

Dear Chris

Dear Chris,

Being the devout Episcopalian that I am, I went to my parish's Sunday morning worship service. Confession: I was tired, and I did not want to go. But I muddled through all the routine motions of showering and dressing and primping, and off I went. I dutifully rehearsed with the choir, vested, and took my place in the processional line. Our choir master (you would love singing under her, by the way) finished her prelude and sounded the first chords of the processional hymn -- "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name." Soon I was seated and following along in my bulletin.

These are the things that stood out to me:

The first reading was from 2 Samuel 23: "These are the last words of David..." 

Then the psalm -- Psalm 132: "Lord, remember David, and all the hardships he endured...Let us go to God's dwelling place; let us fall upon our knees before his footstool..."

And then the second reading from Revelation 1: "Grace to you and peace from him who was and who is to come...Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him..."

The Gospel reading, John 18: "My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here."

The anthem -- "The Last Words of David" -- "And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth..."

The communion anthem -- "E'en so, Lord Jesus, Quickly Come" -- "Rejoice in heaven all ye that dwell therein. Rejoice on earth, ye saints below. For Christ is coming, is coming soon. E'en so, Lord Jesus, quickly come, and night shall be no more. They need no light nor lamp nor sun, for Christ will be their All!"



"Last words...all the hardships he endured...coming with the clouds...not from this world...he shall be as light of the morning...night shall be no more..."

Chris, all these words, both spoken and sung, reminded me of you. I knew your time here with us was running out -- we all knew that.

From my place in the chancel area, I could see the whole length of the nave.
I kept looking up, I don't know why. And I noticed the ceiling. And I remembered that the ceiling's architecture is meant to look like the inside of the hull of a ship. I felt like I was in a capsized boat. I even had a small panic attack! But I breathed and prayed, and soon I recovered. I thought about you. I wondered if you had been feeling this way lately, feeling like you were in a boat you couldn't escape, and feeling scared from being tossed around by life's stormy seas. I wanted to comfort you. I wanted to calm the waters for you. I wanted to find a life jacket for you.







And you sailed from this world the very next morning.







Like I said, we all knew it was coming, and I know you knew that too...but still. Your Aunt Judy looked around and said, "He's not suffering anymore." Those words gave me solace. Donnie, Laura, Aunt Judy, Roy and I mourned over losing you. We made calls. We sent messages. Larry, Laurie, Tracey and Eva came. Dave would have been there if he hadn't had to be at work. We all comforted each other. The nurses, doctors, counselor, chaplain -- they were all as wonderful and sweet as ever.

After Laura and Aunt Judy (yes, I really DO call her "Aunt Judy" as if she's my own aunt -- I just love her) left, the rest of us weren't quite ready to part just yet. We all went to Sweet Tea and had lunch together -- Lisa joined us there as well. We talked about you; we talked about the plans for your ashes; we lifted our glasses of tea and Coke while Donnie made a toast to you -- he was sweet; we talked amongst ourselves (I sat across from Roy and I'm going to send him a recipe for some icing he's never made!). I marveled at all the new friends I now have from having you in common with them.



And I wish you were here...



Above, I said we all mourned. And we did. But you know how I am, Chris.
I have to do things my own way, in my own time. I did not cry that day -- not when Donnie called me at 2:00 AM, not as you were dying, not when you
died -- I never shed a tear. I think my subconscious went into what I now refer to as "Rock Mode." I felt I had to be strong for Donnie and Laura and Aunt Judy and all the rest. I didn't even have to choke tears back -- there were none to contend with. Was I sad? Yes. Would I rather have you here, whole and well and free from the bonds of liver disease? Gosh, yes! But I did not cry. Not then.

On Tuesday, I kind of dragged around. I was tired. I was worried about Donnie. Then when Nicholas got home from school he said something -- nothing major -- but it SET ME OFF -- and I flipped out at both boys. Then Mark called while he was on his way home. I told him I was tired and sluggish; that my depression, despite my best efforts, was getting the better of me that day. I told him I was too tired to cook and clean, and we agreed on Chinese take-out.

And then...I cried. And Mark said, "Are you OK?" And I told him,
"I haven't cried yet. This is the first time I've let myself cry." So there it was.
It was done, and I've had an easier go of things today.





I miss you, though.




Monday night, I sat down and reflected on the day. I had just put the boys down for the evening -- they'd had their baths, their jammies were on, they were all snuggled up and falling asleep in their bunk beds. Mark was not home yet because of night school. I have come to love (and covet) the nine o'clock hour on Monday nights, Chris! Sweet solitude, if only for a short while. I sat down and realized how tired I was. I had been awake nineteen hours, and you had taken your last breath thirteen hours ago. I thought about what you said when I visited you on Saturday (Iron Bowl day). You told me twice that you wanted me to be your mama. That whenever I visited I came in and took care of you. That you knew I was a good mom. And I thought about my sleeping boys, and how I love putting them to bed and making them feel cozy and loved. I wished I could do that for you. Since I couldn't, I wrote a little thing on my Facebook wall:

What a long and exhausting day it's been. But I was able to be by my friend's side, and I would not have been anywhere else. Now I'm enjoying the quiet solitude...boys have been bathed, read to, sung to. I love the end of day parenting, when the kids are clean and smelling good and sleepy. Chris told me two days ago that he wanted me to be his mama -- he really said that. Now he too is clean and comfortable, and I hope he feels the tucked-in love that my sons feel. All is merry and bright. Rest in peace, Chris, you sweet, sweet boy.

I hope you like it. I hope you know I mean it. And I hope the part about you being all clean and comfortable and tucked in is true. Watch over me and all of us that will always love and miss you. Pray for us. Pray for my boys and for your little niece that will be with us in the spring. Pray for all us mamas. Pray for your Birmingham friends and your Marshall County friends and family. Go find your place in the choir, and when you see me coming, I hope you will have saved me a seat.

Love,
Melanie