Grape #45: Maybe Tomorrow

Normally, I'm an optimist. Annoyingly so. Throughout my life, more often than not, I can find the bright side of things, even when the darkness is totally surrounding me or the people I love. I've simply come to trust that things will eventually get better, because so far, they always have.

In college, when I was a vowed religious brother (a modern-day monk) I suffered with clinical depression. I didn't know it was clinical depression at first, of course. I just knew I was deeply unhappy all the time: thinking, feeling, speaking, and acting very much out of character from my usual chipper self. I thought everyone was sneaking around my back, whispering things about me, or otherwise conspiring to find their happiness far away from me.

Early morning on Lake Pauline in Ludlow, Vermont. As you sip your coffee and see a scene like this, you can't help but feel immersed in the beauty before you, even that which is still cloaked in darkness.

The crack between the bottom of my bedroom door and the flat carpet of my monastery bedroom offered just enough of a view out into the hallway to know when someone was passing by, and more importantly, it offered me better acoustics than my ear to the door alone could provide.

I needed to know what they were saying, where they were going, why they weren't knocking on my door to invite me to go along with them. It was a sickness I couldn't snap myself out of, mostly because I had no idea I was even ill. I knew the world had grown much darker and more stressful, but I wasn't able to make the connection between chemical imbalances in my brain and all that I was witnessing, experiencing, and suffering through.

My formation team finally recognized something was going on with me, and before I knew it, I was sitting in the passenger seat of one of our cars as my Novice Director drove me to an appointment with a psychologist.

If you've ever heard or uttered the phrase, often shouted, 'You should have your head examined!', you know it's not generally offered in a kind way. No, none of the monks or priests I lived with said this to me exactly, but they didn't have to. I felt like a complete failure just knowing they were bringing me to see a psychologist. I'd been a monk for three and a half years at that point, so while life was already quite a struggle for me, somehow knowing I was too much for even them to handle made it all the worse.

(The journey from that impossibly long drive to Yonkers where I first met my doctor to the man I am today is a much longer story, some of which I detailed more extensively through a character named Brother Cody who I created for my book Outside In.)

As the sun peeks up from behind the mountain rise, you know the entire scene will soon be drenched in light. You celebrate the sun's arrival, but you still cherish the moody darkness of the lake.

The good news is, seeing a psychologist, receiving my diagnosis, and accepting that my entire worldview was merely clouded by a chemical imbalance in my brain has helped me so much over the years. While my initial struggle lasted upwards of two years, my bouts with clinical depression have since only surfaced for two or three days at a time. They show up, I identify what they are almost right away, and I move onward, trusting the feelings will soon subside...because they always do.

This has been a consistent pattern in my life for the past 27 years since I left the monastery. A fog comes upon me, I instantly recognize it for what it is, and I see it lift again in two or three days' time. And the fog only appears two or three times a year now too, so it's no big deal, only... This fall, it arrived on queue, but still hasn't left.

Somewhere in September this year, a 27-year-old trigger was activated. The situations are still ongoing in some ways, so I don't want to discuss them now, but suffice it to say, they made me feel immensely defeated by life and loved ones. I was not just outnumbered, but outsmarted too, and things I thought I had some control over left me helpless. It was like I was happily holding a helium-filled balloon in my hand one moment, and the next moment--whoosh!--it was flying this way and that all around the room.

Moments like this happen to all of us, of course, and in some ways, I believe they can be good reminders that nothing is within our control, that some stories simply don't end all that nicely.

Because there were situations plural at the time this trigger went off, and because there have consistently been more and more situations piling up Job-style ever since, my depression sits heavily on top of me even as I type this out. My two-or-three day average has been absolutely shot to hell by this season-long depression--a seasonal depression long before the usual season, you might say.

Seeking out the light.

 

 

 

I'm a big believer in the first step of the 12 steps program, which in a larger context can be summarized by the statement, "I admit that I've got a problem, and it's totally out of my control."

Admitting things aren't right can be a terribly difficult admission to make, but once we get that far, once we just take this very first step, we are that much closer to healthy joy and sober thinking--with or without the involvement of addiction.

To that end, I'm closer. I've long since admitted I am powerless over this depression. I've made apologies to those who have witnessed or been recipients of my outbursts, and I have even made pre-apologies for my negativity and micro-aggressions.

It's been about three months since I first felt depression weighing me down this time around, and while three months is an awful long time to be feeling so lousy, I am no less optimistic that this fog shall lift soon. This cloud will clear. This heavy stress will evaporate off me, just as it always does. I know this from experience and I know this from the golden vault of sheer willpower whose assets within me are many. I am more powerful than this cloud, and my sun is far brighter than this darkness. I'm not there yet, but I will be again soon. Not today, but maybe tomorrow.

Grape #44: I'm Not Okay

November 6, 2024

I should clarify. I’m okay, but I’m not okay today. I’m in shock, and I’m really, really sad and depressed, and confused, and not sure how to fully acknowledge and accept this fact before I move forward.

I will move forward. I will. But in this moment right here, I need to—I don’t know. I guess I just need to be in this moment right here before all else. I need to sit with my feelings and digest them. Wait for the hard pill, which has been forced down my throat, to kick in.

I’m not okay. There are people in my life who have put aside all sense of moral decency to elect someone they hope will keep their neighborhoods whiter and their eggs cheaper. These are in many cases people I have always hoped had more goodness in them than racism, sexism, xenophobia, transphobia, and greed. I’m angry at them, but sadness and disappointment continue to supersede all other emotions.

We talk about the need to heal our country, to bring everyone together, but when more than half the country mocks us, or uses the laughter emoji when we say things like this online, how can we hope to get anywhere? How can we hope to find healing when most people are enamored with the person they are?

I’m not okay with that. I’m not okay with the status quo. This is why I have spoken out and why I will continue to speak out. Only…I need to shift my approach. I need to focus on my core beliefs and the core of goodness I know glows within all of us. Instead of reacting or judging, I need to just live in the light as much as I can.

Anne Lamott wrote, “Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.”

Is that enough? Is being a light, and not a reactionary light, enough? I certainly admire those people who react without being reactive, who teach without judgment, who lead without commanding. Jesus was such a person. In the New Testament, he continually keeps his shit together, even when people say and do awful things to him or to others in his presence. All manner of dumbfuckery and violence are coming at him, and yet he just stands there shining.

I’m no Jesus. I don’t make any claim or suggestion I’m anywhere close. But he is a hero of mine, and an inspiration in all I do. I sometimes come close to his approach, and even occasionally manage to be Christlike, but man did he hold back, and that level of restraint really did work for him. I mean, yeah, he got crucified in the end, at only 33, but his legacy lives on, for Christians and non-Christians alike.

So yeah. I’m not okay. I’m sad. I’m really, really, really sad, actually. But I know I need to move past this, not just in acceptance, but with determination for the road ahead.

November 18, 2024

I’m still not okay. I’m better, but I’m just… I’m still confused as to how to proceed. I suddenly realized there were far more people all around me who were okay with the most terrible kinds of hate, and this awful fact absolutely froze me in my tracks. It was as if I always knew I had a little cancer around me, but on election night, my doctor informed me that I was actually surrounded by Stage 4 terminal hatred.

Most of the political pundits and anchors on the news have focused these past two weeks on the blame game as they think out tactics for better results going forward. One takeaway that has continually jumped out for me is this trope that people don’t like to be referred to as bad/trash/deplorable, and so on.

The unspiritual part of me reacts viscerally to this. I don’t like that I can’t call a rotting piece of fruit rotting. I reject the idea that I should pretend like it’s a perfectly good piece of healthy fruit. The spiritual part of me is more loving, kinder, and forgiving, but no less confident that racism, xenophobia, transphobia, and the like are profoundly unhealthy characteristics for any soul to gravitate toward.

And herein lies my greatest struggle these days: it’s not easy bringing light to a very dark room that seems to remain very dark no matter how bright your light shines. Surely this has been said far more eloquently by philosophers and poets throughout history, but all I can manage is this: my flashlight is working, but the room is still dark.

“But who are you?” those comfortably living in the darkness will chide. “How dare you judge us! What kind of a perfect person do you imagine yourself to be telling us what is dark and what is light?” I understand this visceral, defensive reaction, but only because I am all too aware of my own darkness. I could list off a hundred things about my personality, my addictions, and my life choices that are far from the light I so espouse to bring to the world. The difference between me and them, however, is that I would not hold up my many faults as healthy fruit worthy of a place at the table. I would not vote for a piece of rotting fruit and proclaim it to be fresh and wholesome. I would not feed myself with a festering, wormy piece of fruit and pretend as if it was healthy and beautiful.

Darkness is darkness, sins are sins, and hatred is hatred, whether or not anyone likes it. It’s a sick kind of gaslighting for so many to react so loudly and angrily to an accusation that is 100% true. But to be honest with you, it works. We all lay off a little more when hateful people refute our claims that they are hateful. “Oh, I’m sorry,” we seem to say. “You’re right. I should be nicer to you.” As if our being kind to them is far more important than their call to be kind to others.

It’s discouraging and dispiriting to say the least.

But…a fact is a fact. If challenging their hatred, sexism, transphobia, Islamophobia, antisemitism, homophobia, racism—or any other phobia or ism you can think of—isn’t working, then there’s no point keeping that as our focus. We need to (I need to) instead channel all that discouragement into fresh new methods that will work.

For starters, and it’s only a start, because that’s all I can manage so far, I’m going to personally switch from a defensive approach to a focused redirection of the conversation at hand, whatever it is that day. If someone says 4 + 4 = 5, instead of refuting their claim emotionally, I will present a calm, thoughtful, loving, sometimes funny retort that doesn’t even feel like a retort. I don’t play any instruments very well, but when an argument breaks out, I’ll play a flute solo with my words, responding by not responding directly, by reframing and presenting a better choice, a happier choice, nearby. When another venomous quote comes out from a loud, brash politician, I’ll post about loving my neighbor, about beautiful ways to look at the same situation without directly responding to the situation.

When a dark room will have nothing of my light, I will shine it all the more brightly in the next room over. I will focus on making whatever room I am welcomed into bright with light and love. I will not force my light on their dark room, but instead live with the hope that those in the next room will see how much nicer things look where I stand. If we each make our brighter room an entire lighthouse of love, we will lead more people safely away from the danger of darkness.

I still won’t feel okay about the darkness of the room beside me, the dark words and actions of the people beside me, but if I stay focused in the light, I’ll be much better off than if I keep walking into that dark room next door and getting nowhere with my flashlight.