Life returning...

Today I am thankful for a miniscule step towards the return to normality. Yesterday was Thanksgiving and my many friends and family in the US spent some time in the afternoon sitting round large dining tables and eating roast turkey, sweet potatoes, and all the other traditional and non-traditional foods that the numerous cultural communities have served up on this American holiday.

Here in the UK it is a non-event, though many more English people are aware that this is some sort of special day for Americans. I’ve lived here for such a long time that I usually forget that this is such a big day in the Yankee calendar. The origins of the Thanksgiving Day are lost in the mists of time, re-written by the Americans to read like a wonderful fairy tale of the early life of the English settlers in America and the Native Americans they met during those first hard winters. It doesn’t really matter that much anymore. What does matter is that so many people have used this time as a time of reflection, a time to acknowledge what they are thankful for and how much they have in their lives.

For the last month I have been in retreat, spent a lot of time in hibernation and indulged my feelings of sadness, alienation and futility. I’ve tried to bring a modicum of compassion to the ‘poor me’ that semi-lived in my house this November and sometimes I succeeded and other times I gave into utter despair. I was reminded once again of the power of friendship and the power of love. Those around me treated me with loving sensitivity as if I was very fragile and delicate. It humbles me to think about how beautifully I was received even when I was unable to give back.

I am dealing with the loss of my father step by step. His death was expected and even welcomed, as a release from a life lived well, but ending when it was needed. I see that there is a difference between death and loss. The loss of my dad is where my sadness lives. This will take time. The memories that flooded in on me at the beginning of this month were almost unbearably painful. Every memory caused more tears. I am beginning to laugh more when I remember my dad. Laughter and tears are not a bad mix.

So on this American Thanksgiving, to honour the land of my birth, I am thankful for many things. I am thankful that I have so much in my life, that I have people who love me, who I love in return, that I had two good, strong, loving parents who have instilled in me the courage to survive and that I will go on from here in a positive way, even when I sometimes feel tempted to do otherwise. I am thankful that I am still alive and still have time to do the many things that I haven’t finished yet.

And, despite my father’s misgivings, I am even thankful to be living in London, where we save our turkeys for Christmas and sweet potatoes come un-candied, with no marshmallow toppings.

I suspect that I am coming back into the world, little by little.

	mojo
	1. Self-confidence, Self-assuredness. As in basis for belief in ones self in a situation 2. Good luck fetish / charm to bolster confidence. 3. Ability to bounce back from a debilitating trauma and negative attitude

Playing a waiting game...

Today is a new day. I was touched and only a little bit embarrassed by loving thoughts from friends. It helps me to make my moods more public, the hidden quality to depression just makes it worse.
Every time someone sent me a hug or wished me well I wound up crying again. There seems to be an endless supply of tears in the one body I am carrying around so heavily these days. Sometimes I just silently cry and watch the tears running down my cheeks and sometimes I am bent double sobbing like a small child and sometimes I am just numb and disconnected. I know that I am not my feelings, that I have the meditative ability to witness my feelings and allow them to pass through me, but I also know that sometimes I am totally identified with the crying, the wailing and the despair.

Watching my depression grow reminds me of the first time I decided to experiment with live yeast. I could only have been about 9 or 10 and I got hold of some baking yeast and thought I would see what happened when you mixed yeast with hot water and put it in a jar. I screwed the lid on the jar tightly and hid the jar under my bed. Every few minutes I checked on the growth. It seemed to grow at a phenomenal rate.  By the end of the day the yeast/water mixture had reached the top of the jar and then I got a bit frightened. What would happen if I took the lid off the jar? Would the growing yeast mixture overflow, would it make a huge mess, would it carry on growing? So I did what I have since seen is a recurring pattern my life - I pushed the jar further under my bed, pretended it wasn't there and went to sleep. When I woke up in the morning my bedroom had a strange yeast smell. The jar was no longer where I had left it. The lid of the jar had blown off, the yeast mixture exploded and the mess was everywhere. Suffice it to say I was horrified, my mother was furious and I spent a few hours crawling around under my bed cleaning off growing yeast blobs.

Ever since then I have dealt with my winter depression in the same way - I have bottled it up, checked on it periodically and then pushed it away until it exploded. This doesn't seem to work very well. The adult version of the jar of yeast means that I create mess by doing this - with work,with friends, with relationships and primarily, with myself. So yesterday I opened the jar and revealed the expanding contents. By writing my feelings I stopped them a bit from growing bigger. This morning I checked on them and I felt a bit easier, not so suicidal, not so panicked and alone and this is definitely a good thing.

Today I woke early, I showered, washed my hair and even put a small amount of make-up on. I got dressed and went out into the world for a bit, not too far because I am still in physical pain from my neck, my tooth extraction and just my whole self, but further than yesterday. I had a solitary coffee in Starbucks, cooed at someone else's cute baby and came home.  This is a step in the right direction. The yeast is arrested in its explosive contained rising. Maybe tomorrow I can see people and move a bit more.

I see that I have no real choice. There are too many people in the word that I believe care for me, for me to give up.  It's tempting. It's very, very tempting, but ultimately, it's not a choice. One day at a time, one hug at a time, I will make my way through this. I know that if I keep feeding the negativity I am living in right now - feeding it and putting a lid on it, it will grow and grow and I am afraid that I will explode with it, but in that explosion I will just disappear. Small yeasty Cynthia blobs clinging to the underside of the furniture.

I am not ready to disappear yet. I have too many things to create, too many cakes to bake and shopping trips to make. Like I said yesterday... one day at a time.

Negative intention

In reading the title of this blog I realised today that it is completely innaccurate. Not only do I not have many positive intentions today, but today I am positively negative in my approach to the world.  I am not doing very well. As I write today I cry too. Tears just seem to have started falling again. The tears had stopped for a few days and fool that I am, I thought I was finished. I thought the sadness and blanket of negative energy had lifted. it hadn't, it hasn't and I am lower than I have felt for years. Winston Churchill described his depression as a 'Black Dog' that came to inhabit him. I feel like I have a nameless big fog of bad feelings just covering my whole world right now.

What to do? Can doing actually change anything? What really is the point? I get up, I do all sorts of time-wasting small things that simply pass the days until I can legitimately crawl back into my bed and sleep. Even that is difficult. I have constant pain in my neck (it would be funny if I felt like seeing it that way) and the result is that I also feel worn down. I am at the giving up point today.

Will I give up? I am really not sure. I am closer than I have been for a long time. My father's death has come at the wrong time of the year. How inconsiderate of him to die at the beginning of winter. I cannot cope at all. I am supposed to return to work next week. Can I? Will I? Do I give a damn? All these questions and no answers. All the things I could 'do' to make myself better and no motivation whatsoever to do anything at all.

I feel sad for Ralph, standing helpless, giving me hugs, patience and time to recover. Instead the only re-covering I do is to pull the blankets up higher until they are almost covering me head to toe. In this space I reject everything. I reject offers of kindness and gestures of love, I reject the possibility of feeling better when I feel I am swimming through the black soup of misery. I am not a good swimmer and this soup has a particularly tiring quality. I am just so tired and yet all I do is sleep.

So this is today and it just feels endless...