The Blue Wham

Wham! It just gets you right between the eyes. Everything is fine. You inhale but somehow before you exhale the blue just seeps over everything and makes the last half of that breath so heavy you can’t do it.

I’ve been doing so well, or at least faking it well. Then today that heavy blue, like wet corduroy making every nuance a task, is all over everything. I don’t seem to be able to control it. I don’t seem to be able to recognize the switch that sets it off. All I can do is struggle under the soggy pressure and act like it neither effects or affects me.

The holidays are blessedly over. I knew they would be painful. Ironically the new job working from 8 PM to 4:30 AM helped. I spent most of the time just trying to figure out what day it was, making the depression seem palatable. It was there, but it was like a pained animal lurking in the bushes of my life, regaining its energy to strike.

It doesn’t make sense, the uncontrollable surge. It has no place in my life. Yet there it is constantly feeding me despair and hopelessness like Twinkies and Hot Tea. I try to resist, but when I least expect it, it is the temptation I cannot resist.

Things were going so well. I alluded myself into thinking I had it under control. I know it’s a problem that is going to be there for a while longer, but I think I’ve worked it out so no one knows it’s a part of every breath I take.

I’m usually only on the floor when the store is open for less than an hour, which has been good. Faking being normal in public is so exhausting. Most of the time, I work in one aisle by myself, so I don’t have to invent being inventive at conversation. I’ll be there chugging right along and suddenly find myself staring at a jar of Ragu and wondering what the point is.

The times I’ve desperately wanted to smash one of those jars with all the anger of my existence I’ve lost count. The energy it has taken to resist slicing open so much more than the box cartons would power Epcot Center. The imagined kicks to my own skull after a brief conversation with a coworker screaming “You’re letting them get too close” are more consistent than the snow here.

But I’ve been good. I’ve fought it. I haven’t curled up in a little ball like a hamster too sick to find its wheel as much and every time I’ve managed to stave it off from anyone who would notice or care.

I’ve smiled. I’ve laughed. I’ve been thoroughly human when that is actually the very last possible emotion I could really feel. I’ve resigned to it. This is how it is and it’s the best thing.

I can’t let it just take over. I cannot let the blue be the only stimulation of my world. It’s an acting chore, like the wonderful Swoosie Kurtz once said, “You just imagine it in your head and do it, eventually it will become real”.

That’s what I’m doing. Imagining being a human, hoping eventually it will become real. I was once. I will be again. I have to be again. I refuse to become a casualty in my own war.

Yesterday was such a great day. I slept late, wasn’t groggy or cranky getting up. Went to work, in public and enjoyed the craziness that is “there is snow on the ground so we’ll never ever be able to buy food again”. I laughed and smiled and was helpful.

I came home, ate a snack and played on the Internet until the Tylenol PM finally engulfed me. I even got a compliment via Twitter from a writer. It was a good day. I went to sleep faking happy so well it was almost real.

Then today, the wham of blue attacked from the corner it was hiding in. There is no pill, no counseling, no emotion, no action that can shake it. For lack of a better image, it’s a debilitating chigger always there until it finally dies and falls off.

Maybe there is something to cover the effects, but there’s nothing to make it go away and never ever come back. Yes, yes there is. There is something inside me that does this. There is something triggering this off, stronger each time but thankfully with longer periods of being able to fake it not being there in between.

All I have to do is find it. All I have to do is stop the trigger or recognize it enough to switch it back off. All I have to do is trust that some how, some way, some day this will all be in the past, carcass in the little box with all the other nightmares I’ve slain.

I’d ask for help. I get on my knees scratching my bloody eyes screaming for help if there was anything anyone could do. This is something only I can do.

I’ll be fine. I promise. I’ll get past all this. I will be human again, as normal as it can be in the eye of the beholder. But I’ll never ever love the blue.

Feed Santa

Earlier in the week I found a note, clearly displayed, in the kitchen. This is not uncommon, as my mother consistently leaves Post Its around as reminders to herself. Maybe they are for Dad and I, as when we see them, we usually get it done.

This particular note struck my eye, as it clearly stated “Feed Santa”. It was late for us, 9 PM, so my first instinct was to get out a plate of milk and cookies. Although according to that wonderful commercial they’ve run the last couple of years, you get a better haul if you give him cheese.

On second thought, knowing my mother’s handwriting is notoriously hard to interpret; I thought I’d better ask. There was a huge debacle with the word “Pepto” several years ago that still has retailers in Harford County, MD shaking in their boots.

So I saunter into the den, where Mom is enjoying her monotonous marathons of “America’s Funniest Home Videos” and casually say. “Mom, what’s this note that says feed Santa?”

She gave me one of those ‘can’t you read’ looks she always gives and corrected me. I’m so glad I asked. Imagine my embarrassment of trying to open non-existent Christmas gifts under the non-existent tree in October, ruining perfectly good cookies and milk when all that needed to be done was “Feed Starter”.

I’ve said before, my mother makes bread and sells it as a hobby. It’s quite delicious and she makes any where from twenty to thirty loaves on average per week for friends, etc. It’s made from an old fashion ‘starter’ and twenty-four hours before you make the dough, you must feed the starter, which is, of course, the leavening.

Now I leave all this to Mom. She’s the bread maker; I’m the cheesecake maker. She don’t mess with my spring form pans. I don’t mess with the jars of mystery liquid in the fridge. All I know is you feed it with instant potato granules. Where the origin of this starter comes from I don’t know.

Mom doesn’t know either. You can make it, but she says she doesn’t know how and never has. My guess it is made from the remains of an original sour dough bread loaf back when the Indians occupied the territory we now live in. It’s definitely something “yeasty” and would probably set off an atomic chain reaction if dropped. Scary stuff, but the bread is worth the risk of toxic disaster.

This “starter” is one of those Southern things that seems to carry on no matter how hard you try to kill it or forget it. Like counting the fogs in August will tell you how many new snows there will be the coming winter. If your ears are burning someone is talking about you. Wrap tea in a cheesecloth and put it in a teething baby’s mouth to soothe them, general bizarre but dead on stuff.

Of course, the whole incident has me thinking. How many times in my life have a looked at something, as much as two or three times, determined the instruction and carried on, not realizing I had misread? Would my life be drastically different? Would the world?

Could I have altered the entire course of my life, simply by stopping and saying out loud, “What’s this note about feeding Santa?” Could disaster have been avoided if someone on the Titanic said out loud “What’s that white thing out there?” Could history have been changed if someone in Florida had asked “What’s a chit?”

Perhaps I’m over simplifying, but as I age I discover more and more that it is more often the tiny things adhering together that make up the big things. Often a smile from a stranger on the street has buoyed me into getting through the rest of the day. Knowing I reached the little goal I set for myself that day piles up to making a whole week go by.

I wonder what would have happened had I paid more attention to the details. I wonder how many wonderful friendships I could have had if I hadn’t dismissed someone because I didn’t bother to “Feed Santa”. I wonder what kind of career I would now be enjoying the benefits of if either myself or someone else had bothered to get just five seconds more of information?

I have lived my life with few regrets. It is not what I wanted or expected it to be, but I’ve been lucky. I’ve lived every dream I’ve ever had. Maybe not on the grand scale it was in my head but I have been to Africa. I have performed on a stage in front of thousands of people. I’ve had plays produced, my words read by strangers and had the chance to meet people that were my heroes and thank them for being that for me.

But I wonder now what more could have been. Could it have been richer? Could there have been less tears and frustrations? Could there have been someone that I could have helped?

Maybe the right question is how much better can whats ahead be? Perhaps, that’s what we all should be keeping in mind, especially now when the world seems to be so full of hate, loneliness and lies.

Feed Santa.