Recovery
It's January 2018.
I've
made no official resolutions this year. I tentatively resolved in
November that I would purchase a gym membership but that was a joke.
I
see a psychiatrist regularly now. My parents attended a meeting with me
a few weeks ago. My dad spoke one sentence and my mother carried on
most of the dialogue, mainly defending me against a host of diagnoses,
but at the end of our session it was quite obvious we have a family
history of mental illness and I'm going to try a new medication. Because
apparently Topamax, Trazodone, and Klonopin are not sufficient.
I
tried a second antidepressant in addition to Trazodone last winter but
it made my hair fall out so I quit taking it. I also tried Seroquel
last summer, which robbed me of five weeks of sanity, and the memories
of it's zombie-like effects haunt me still.
People with
Bipolar shouldn't take antidepressants, I've since learned. But I still
take Trazodone for sleep. Bipolar makes it difficult to sleep and every
couple months I hit a month of waking up at 3 a.m. and laying in bed
wide awake with racing thoughts til morning. I recently was diagnosed
with Bipolar Depression. I've learned that I have a genetic
predisposition to this disease, and that it's a real thing. Certain life
events can trigger it into existence and my doctors all agree I have
it. I was in denial at first but I'm starting to see myself through
their lens.
I'm supposed to try Latuda next. Side
effects include nausea, drowsiness, and inability to stop moving. I'm
rooting for drowsiness. I don't mind feeling down. It's become a
familiar and comfortable feeling. This drained out mellow nothing-to-do
feeling. This must be how a heroin injection feels. Empty. Soulless.
Like getting to die without having to say good-bye. Floating around and
watching the world go by.
Geoff got married. I
found out from Google. Up popped a page of he and her,
together, with their wedding registry and the immaculate wedding venue
photos. I looked at the date. July 29, 2017. I swallowed hard. The few
fleshy edges of my non-calloused
heart turned to stone and a numbness covered me.
She
looked charming and cute in their pre-wedding announcement photo, and I
could see in his face he was happy. He looked slim and healthy, unlike
when he was dating me. She must inspire him to be a better man, I
thought. I couldn't help but be happy for Geoff, for a moment, until I
read the elaborate reception details, and imagined their magical day of
bliss, shared with the family I'd lost, but I saw they belonged
together. There was no way she didn't return to
him all the joy I'd robbed him of, tenfold. Our break-up had
surely been a gift to him. He was better off now. I felt a much overdue
sense of closure and had a confused happy-sad feeling come over me. Then I began to cry.
Geoff
never in our decade-long relationship spoke an unkind word to me. Not
once. Lord knows I belittled him almost daily. I can't believe he
tolerated it all those years, and was willing to marry me at the end of
it all. After we called off our own wedding and he was openly dating again, I recall asking him
what kind of girl he was looking for, and he told me, "I just want to
find someone who is nice to me."
And here she was. The nice girl. I stared
tearfully at the picture of Geoff and Sonia and I could sense instantly this girl was in every way
kind. Sometimes you can just read kindness in someone's eyes. Geoff had
those kind eyes too. He deserved her. She deserved him. They were truly a perfect pair. I cried myself to sleep as I pondered their
amazin relationship and fairy tale wedding and how they would grow old
together, sitting on porch chairs.
I woke up the next
morning and swept the decomposing ashes of my heart and soul into
some coherent blob and stood erect out of bed. I walked to the bathroom
and peed. I washed my hands and stared in the mirror. My face was empty
and pale
and sad. I splashed some water on my face and pulled my pony tail out. That didn't help at all. Somehow I looked like I'd aged five years overnight. I went directly back
to bed and covered up and cried some more.
It's
January, I remind myself. It's the armpit of winter. In the Adirondacks.
And I hate the cold. I never learned to ski nor do I have a desire to.
If I were an animal I'd be a bear. A lonely non-mating bear.
I try to find something hopeful to grip onto in my mind. There's pill bottles all around and all I want to do is sleep the rest of my life away. Then I remember my
mom's eldest sister, Patricia, who had just lost her husband of some fifty years this past year. They raised three beautiful daughters and shared
in the birth of six grandchildren together before his passing. He was ill for almost ten years as she became his caregiver and watched him slowly die. She truly became the embodiment of love for him, as I know is the case with many couples when one goes before the other. But for her it was particularly difficult.
Then through
some strange twist of fate, Patricia's ex-fiance from college tracked
her down just months after my uncle's passing. He wanted to return to her a ring that he gave her when they were dating over fifty years ago. She gave it back when she broke up with him when he went overseas to fight in a war. It was a sad story and all, but she had moved on and never had any contact with him again. The ring somehow got stashed in a wall in the house where he grew up and when he tracked down Patricia to
give it to her, they reconnected and are presently engaged.
What's even neater is he was even able to track down her old engagement ring at the pawn shop he originally pawned it at over fifty years ago, too. I think the stone was separated from the band so he just had the stone refitted to a new band. What a story. His wife died of cancer six years ago and he has grown kids as well. They both lived out their lives and found their way back to one another at the end.
So to ease myself as I came to terms with the fact Geoff is a married man now, I remembered this story.
But I have to stop writing about Geoff for now. The story of Geoff
waits. Waiting for another chapter that may never come. Love is a funny thing. Love can grip something so
tight it suffocates the very life out of it. Or love can choose to let
go. Surrender is an open armed gesture, and I stand here in the
metaphysical realm barehanded, empty, waiting on life to
someday return something to me that I've lost, once I'm deemed worthy of
receiving it back.
Time is my friend. It's a vehicle that
will carry me to old age, where I'll near the end of this rocky road and
possibly figure out what it takes to make myself worthy of being loved
again.
I heard about a study where people in their 80's
reported the highest level of life satisfaction and personal
contentment, so I'll shoot for making it that far, so long as I'm in
good health. I wouldn't mind a companion in the meantime, just for company now and then. Someone with which to watch the leaves fall and share meals and watch movies and laugh. That would be nice. If not, that's okay too. I'm
okay with doing those things alone.
Perhaps Geoff will someday fly back to the 'dacks, and in old age together we'll perch among the Will Rogers community or be roomies at the Dechantel.
If at the final end of one of our lives we got to spend just one autumn together, caring one for another, like I witnessed last Fall when a dying man I cared for was reunited with his estranged ex-girlfriend after calling out her name just days before he passed, "Nancy, Nancy..." If that's how our story ends, that would be entirely meaningful to me.
Geoff I need you to know I never wanted to part ways forever. That was unimaginable. I wish we could have just taken a long long break. It's impossible to grieve you when you're still alive. Please store some stories up your sleeve for me, in case our paths cross again. Remember me and the good times, please. Remember our journey
because there's lots of it I've already forgotten.
And if our paths never cross again I'd like to think we're both better off for having had them cross once. Bye for now. You will always be my best friend.
