Sidebar 7 - Books as Companions (pt.2)

I suppose you could call this a non-suicide note. I never want to write a suicide note, but writing this variety is fine by me. Especially if it helps turn things around.

Depression’s a heavy weight on my soul. I’ve wanted to kill myself ever since I can remember. The first time I ever visualized it was in middle school. I meditated on dangling near the pull-up bar my dad mounted for me.

I used to envision a day that it would disappear, that I’d live depression free. That it somehow was a disease to cure that I would have moved passed. Now I think about it like I imagine the pain that Addie has to experience in this final phase of her pregnancy. To get the rewards of a baby, she had to go through the pregnancy. To get to the next day, sometimes I have to manage through a day that’s a little more gray and a little more difficult than I would like.

There are upsides. My empathy is off the charts. My appreciation for good days is high. My openness can cut through years of closed up communications and generate deep relationships relatively quickly.

Maybe I’m resigning myself unnecessarily to live the rest of my days with this burden. Maybe I’m subjecting myself to a life of The Tortured Poet.¹ But I really don’t think so.

Maybe depression is like writing. It’s in my soul. It’ll leak out everywhere, on to everything I touch. Maybe I can learn to love it. Fold it in with the other ingredients that make me… me.

Pity, self-doubt, victimhood. I think there’s a way to live with depression that isn’t so embroiled in this mess. A way to think the fucking horrible thoughts and then wave at them as they float on by. Then make use of them by dumping some of them, siphoning them, filtering them… into something else.

Books (especially those about writing right now) seem to ease the suffering. I tend to feel seen. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott was life-changing for me. And re-reading Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert continues to act as a salve. If the acute depressive episode I’m experiencing feels like a dull aching sunburn, the voices of these women are the cooling effects of aloe vera.

One of the soothing moments in Big Magic comes when Liz² talks about readers approaching her with claims that Eat, Pray, Love was their book and that she stole it. She’s pragmatic. Patient. To us, she writes that she lived a thing, wrote about it, worked really hard to craft a compelling narrative arc. And then published the dang thing. She rhetorically asks: Did you do any of that?

I think she’d add: By the way, please write your book. We need it. We want you to create something beautiful that will hit us in our hearts. We need that more now than ever because genAI content is about to wash out all the humanness we so dearly need but don’t appreciate as much as we should. We won’t know what we had until it’s gone.

Speaking of things that are gone. Before I met Addie, I was in a relationship for more than eight years. We spent some good years together, moved several times to several states. We managed our relationship over international distance and several iterations of grad school. We launched our careers and survived COVID-19. Her mom got me my vaccinations. We adopted two small pets together. My first. Then things fell to pieces more than five years ago.

I was reminded of this out of the blue today. A few weeks ago, I bought an iPad for work. I configured it with an email address that must have been used for an iPad my ex and I shared. A video of me and a guinea pig surfaced when I was trying to upload a screenshot in a chat tool. What a trip. I’ve never cried harder than when I said goodbye to those little critters. They loved bell peppers.

God… I’ve lived a lot of life for my years. I’ve lived in several states, and now countries. I’ve worked a dozen different jobs. I’ve been in two romantic relationships that span thirteen years. I’ve been laid off, and promoted a few times. I’ve been managed exceptionally well, and poorly. I’ve managed others. I’ve taught informally and formally. I’ve watched two dogs die. I quit a job and moved with my pregnant wife and dog across an ocean. And I’m going to be a dad. Woof.

When Forrest Gump³ learns he has a son, he’s overcome with emotion that he might have somehow cursed somebody else with his simple-mindedness. Despite all he accomplishes via serendipity, a positive attitude, and stick-to-itiveness, he doesn’t want his son to be cut from his cloth. I get it.

I wouldn’t wish these gray days on anyone. No one ever again. For me, it feels like my spirit being covered in a cold blanket while it’s really hungry. But the heat’s out wherever my spirit lives and all its other clothes are wet. It also doesn’t have any matches or candles on hand. And it’s car is out of gas. To my spirit, it feels like there’s nothing to do except literally shiver under the wet blanket and wish that it will dry faster. In the meantime, my head and heart and physical body do our best to go about our business. And, eventually, the sad sack under the wet blanket nods off to sleep.

So let’s follow the pendulum swing from wallowing in misery back to the soothing energy from Anne and Liz. They both teach that there are hidden gems within us that are worth extracting. We do this through disciplined hard work and craft. We go within to enrich without and the work is worth doing.

I believe in my core that my sphere of influence is better for my efforts. I hope that will continue to be the case. That’s the whole reason for this move. To dislodge preconceived notions and learn new perspectives. To widen the foundation I can stand on comfortably.

And if some days it feels like we’re eroding the foundation we had before instead of adding to it? So be it. We’ll write that off to acceptable self-doubt and acknowledge that it’s the risk we took. We’ll focus more on the skills of actively repairing the foundation moving forward instead of dwelling on the cracks we’re noticing.

I believe in my core that foundations don’t erode. Not while we’re actively working on expanding them. Instead we pick a target and step towards it. We step towards it again. And again. Then turn around after a long day’s walk and see the ground we’ve covered.

Of course, it helps to know which of the cardinal directions we’re walking in. What the vision is at the end of the day. And here’s my target: when my kid is 25⁴, I want them to call and say, “Thank you. You imbued me with the tools I’d need and now I’m doing the thing. I feel able to go off and pursue ___. See ya in a bit.”

Interesting… why 25? Why not 18, or 15, or 12. Or… as soon as they’re able, with appropriate steps and boundaries along the way.

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So, we’ll tie off this rambling emotional exposition where it started: this is a non-suicide note.

It’s an acknowledgment that I’m living with depression and that suicidal thoughts do surface. It’s a reminder of several core beliefs I hold and what exactly it is that we’re doing over here. Those core beliefs are grounded in hope, something that Anne teaches should be the roots of any American story.

Hope leads me to envision a future in which “devoted husband and father; caring brother and friend” is inscribed on my tombstone. It leads me to envision living up to the father I want my kid, or kids, to have. To see them as empowered beings, even in the face of something like the next Great War or the Tech Singularity.

Generally, I’m glad we’re here. I’m glad we’re doing the work to build our family. I want to play a part in what happens next.

Onwards.