It surprises me, sometimes, the trappings of daily life and how they sway and bend you to a ritual of rhythm. Perhaps what is more startling though is that underneath real life, humming along at speeds and sounds you barely hear, is a darkness that can reach its way into your patterns and motions and stop you in its tracks. Huh, you think. I didn’t know that run so far underground. I thought I should’ve heard the vibrations from that. How is it that I missed it?
There are times when you find you’re less far away from the edge than you thought you were.
And it’s not because your’e depressed or upset or dragged under by anything in specific. Your marriage has not failed. Your test results are not positive. Your job is not lost. There is just the darkness, hovering there.
It appears when you don’t expect it. When you sit down and continue writing (always then – you may be light and laughter but there is something about you with shadows, and those shadows make their way through your fingers). When you hear a specific song on the radio, you look up and find the lights have gone out. When you are particularly tired and stuck in traffic, suddenly you find that the gloom within your car is disproportionate with the world outside of your four doors.
It is not as though you’re depressed, or anxious, or unhappy. You are as you always are – thinking of what to make for dinner. Thinking of a particular painting by a little person that you want to hang up by your desk. Writing up emails that need to be sent in your head. Then there it is – a sudden sound, a feeling, a weight in your chest. Hullo Darkness, whatcha’ knowin’? You’re startled by this older and familiar bedfellow, whom you were not expecting.
It’s viscous, this darkness. You can tell if you dip your finger in just a bit. It would feel warm and sticky, and it would easily make its way up your hand, and arm, and into your features. It will settle in your head if you let it, and it will remind you of the trespasses you’ve committed and those who have trespassed against you. It doesn’t drag you in and drown you. You’ve already been to that level, you will not fall in. You instead wipe the murk off on the back pocket of your favorite overworn jeans and walk on.
That’s the best way to deal with the dark.
That, and always keeping in the back of your mind that the darkness is out there.
You know what that’s like, living in the gloaming. That’s not who you are, not any more. You are instead remarkably grateful that from time to time you can see it. It proves to you that you’ve worked so hard on getting into the light, but not at the expense of a fake plaster placebo. There is no shiny magpie decorating your former despair with sparkly distractions. If life were sunshine and light then the cure would’ve been a spectacular trick of the mind, an erasing of the past for the irrevocable brainwash of the present. That’s not palliative care. That’s taking away your awareness that there is something to be cautious of. That’s erasing who you were in favor of someone with a better fit with the rest of the shiny happy people.
You are not cured of darkness.
You are instead cured of being lulled into the darkness.
Important distinction.
And again, you wipe off the dark-dipped finger on the back of your jeans and walk on. You don’t need the darkness and the drama associated with it. You can tap into it if and when you need it, but it can’t have you.
I recognize this post will not make sense to most. It will not only seem like something out of left field but will read as though I’m depressed. Yet the truth is I’m not depressed, not at all. I’m ok. I just get startled sometimes by still being able to look down and see an unexpected blackness.
I think for those of us who have lived on the borderline, we live with an awareness of it that is at once both startling and immensely comforting.
-S.
* The featured photo is one I took of myself years ago. I no longer take photos of myself and post them because 1) a few people from my work life discovered my photostream and I thus pulled down the self-portrait stream in its entirety, not because I am upset about it but because it’s not really something I want discussed at work and 2) because when it comes to introspection, I no longer need it to be at the end of a lens.
I totally get it.
And way to go on describing it properly.
This. Completely. Although sometimes I think I let it travel too far before shaking it off. But yes.
Oh how I wish I didn’t get it. What timing, Last week the darkness crept in and Iike you described – nothing had changed. Why was I perfectly fine one moment and not the next? In my case I realized I hadn’t been eating many carbs. Pile on some PMS and I was just chemically messed up (this time) . A few carbs and a send off to PMS and I’m feeling much better but it was a scary few days, wondering just how dark it was going to get.
Beautiful writing. I am completely floored.
For me it is a dark fog –always hovering somewhere nearby even though it can no longer get close enough to consume me and make my breath short.
I totally get it. I’m living it right now in fact. The murkiness overwhelms me some days.
Wow. You’ve managed to explain it perfectly. Right down to getting some on your finger and the conscious choice to wipe it off and keep going.
For me it is like stepping in deep mud, sometimes you lose your shoes to it, sometimes, you pull back intact, and just a little dirty…wiping it off on the grass, or walking on, and letting it wear off.
Scarily enough, I always feel better outside.
I totally get it. My very closest friend tried to commit suicide on Monday morning, for the second time in as many weeks. The darkness just keeps getting closer and harder to push away.
Mine is more like a small pebble I carry in my pocket. Sometimes its small and I can run my fingers over it with no threat. At times it is a comfort, that small smooth pebble. Other times it grows and become heavy, sometimes ripping out the seam and plopping on my foot with a resounding thud. I can either pick it back up and put it in my pocket or kick it out of the way.
I suppose most people have something that triggers a mild depression or melancholy or darkness. For me it’s music from the ’80s. If I listen to too much of it, I start lamenting what I no longer have: youth, freedom, and potential.
Counting my blessings is usually the way out for me. While I may not have those things anymore, I do have a loving wife, 3 Angels for children, a good job I like, and friendships that run deep. As the old movie points out, I really do have a Wonderful Life. (sorry if that was too corny)
Very well phrased.
The tears started to well by the fourth paragraph, and by the time I read Important distinction. they were falling.
Just yesterday, I told my uncle (who is going through a very rough time right now) that those of us who have been to the bottom and found our way out are very lucky. There’s the obvious reasons, of course, but I told him knowing what we have handled, what we could slide back into if we wanted to-that power is almost electric. We have not only seen the other side, but lived it, survived it, and even now, when it creeps up on us, can acknowledge it, own it, and put it back away-and go on just as we were. It makes us feel alive.
From the comments tree are any Jo, like me, fully understand, comprehend and relate to your post.
It would appear that plenty of people get this. I think that most people experience some depression at times of their lives – and even if they have never been dragged down into the dark, your words will resonate with them…because they are aware that it’s possible.
From an artistic perspective, I think that hiding from the darkness would make the overall picture indistinct. Most everybody has some shade. Some people’s pictures are darker than others. Some folks have vivid contrast in their lives.
Not sure where I’m going with this one.