BOOM!
I'm an ass. I'm a jerk. I make a fool of myself.
...
I've been telling everyone, "I feel like I just stepped out of a cave."
Born again. My depression gave birth to me.
Some mothers eat their young.
...
From the movie, the writing, the sunrise, I felt giddy and playful and alive. I decided to go into the sunlight, to keep the feeling going, and not weep in the dark, on the couch, watching old movies. I figured it'd be good for me, to stay in a good mood.
So after I woke up my child, I had to listen to her cry about not wanting to go to school; about how her throat hurt, and she didn't feel well -- I assumed she just didn't want to go, since they had two test today. Took her temperature. No fever.
"You're going to school."
Dropped her off, came home, did my chores, and got dolled-up. Went to town. Had a decent time, except I was lonely. Started feeling like something was missing. That I had forgot something. Started missing everyone! Started thinking my house would burn down. Started worrying.
All the sexy thoughts and fun I had, were drained like a pool at the end of summer. "They're not gonna re-fill you either," says the step-ladder. "That's right," says the diving board. "They're gonna throw a tarp over you, instead."
In the darkness again. I have a strange pain in the side of my head, and feel like I'm gonna pass out.
At my last stop, shopping for groceries for the weekend, I'm walking outside with my buggy filled with food, and there are two men sitting at tables, with crosses, jars for money, and bowls of lollipops. "For just twenty bucks," one man says, "you can feed a mother and her child for a week."
The guilt inside me. I just spent over a hundred dollars, on stuff to make lasagna, bake banana muffins; nice, fancy, name brand food, and I remember getting welfare and government-approved groceries. Why not? Here, take five dollars. Make it six. Yes, I'd like a lollipop. You have a nice day, too.
Walk through the crosswalk. Can't even begin to think about karma: a truck nearly runs me over! I stand there, staring at an old lady who wasn't looking where she was going, and all I can think to do is say, "Excuse me."
I walk to my car. Mood ruined. Every thing's black. The hatch won't open. I'm fiddling with the key, pressing the button. It won't budge! I need to load my groceries and get home. School's out in half an hour, and I'm half an hour AWAY from the school!
In a gray dress, black leggings, and high-heels, suddenly the heat gets to me. In this concrete parking lot, on a hundred degree day, and somewhere, despite the near-state-wide burn ban, SOMEONE is burning, and the smoke is visible, unbearable. I can hardly breathe, and this stupid thing won't open, and a woman is trying to squeeze between me, my car, my buggy, and the next car. "Excuse me," I say, and nearly start crying.
The woman says, "No, I'm the one who nearly hit you while ago." And she apologizes.
I forgive her. "We all have bad days."
I tell her not to feel guilty, and how nice it was, for her to want to find me and apologize. For all she knew, I could have been a crazy person. And not in the bipolar sense. In the raving, angry lunatic sense. I could have told her to go to Hell, and be more careful. No one's perfect, though. I mess up, too.
...
With the groceries in the backseat of the car, instead of in the stubborn/locked trunk, I make it just in time to pick my daughter up from school. Drive home. Put away cold food. Take baths. Cook supper. I'm tired! I leave her to watch iCarly, and draw on her new stack of paper while I go to bed, just for a quick nap, I promise, Honey.
"Come wake me up when your show is over."
I can't seem to get out of bed. "But mommy, there's a bad show on," she says. And I finally make it to the living room. Change the channel. Notice her face is red, and she looks so tired. Kiss her forehead. She's burning with fever!
God damn it.
...
All summer, I avoided this place for two reasons.
Reason one: my friend with cancer? She was in the hospital, and she wanted me to come see her. And I wanted to. I did. But I was so scared to go. Decided to be brave, and unselfish, and go the next day. That night, my daughter got sick, and I was at HER bedside. The kid was sick for several days, and then my friend died.
In April. Just a few days after that last post -- the one that sat at the top for five months, while I was away.
Went to the funeral, and skipped the burial. The next day, I got sick. Came back around (online), only to email one of my favorite blogger friends. And offer to make her a video, of a special night on TCM. Because she's always been so kind to me, and so supportive of my writing. And I wanted to be a good friend.
I had such a void in my soul from not visiting my other friend in the hospital. I never told her what she meant to me, or anything. I'm a coward! I'm a selfish, horrible coward. And now it's over, and what?
I had learned my lesson. Decided to be a good friend -- a better friend! 'Cause God knows I'm always the inattentive jackass when it comes to my friends -- and wanted to show everyone I care about, and everyone who cares about me, how much I'm glad they're in my life, and alive in general.
We'll all be gone someday, and it scares me.
But then that night, at the end of April, when I was taping the movies off TCM, tornadoes ripped through the state, one after another. Satellite lost signal. Of course that's a blip on the radar, in comparison: several people were killed. And I was scared. I felt guilty. I wept.
I never wrote my friend to tell her what happened, why the movies didn't tape. Of course she would understand, and it would have been nothing but a blip...but in my mindset (my dark, basement-dwelling mindset) it only exacerbated my guilt for being a horrible friend to everyone. Especially my late friend.
So May dawned, and my daughter got sick one more time before finally graduating kindergarten. She sat on stage, in a little red chair, wearing a gold robe and hat; the same stage I sat on, exactly twenty years prior. And in the same classroom as my kindergarten reception, my sister gave my daughter a bouquet of flowers, to which she declared:
"This is the best day of my life."
...
Reason number two: my daughter didn't get sick all summer. Not once. Not a single fever. Not a single cold. Nothing! Just a happy, healthy kid. And I was happy for her!
I have a strange phobia -- or a superstition, I guess you'd call it -- concerning my daughter, and blogging. It seems every time I stay away for a while, with no legitimate reason to stay away, other than laziness, or interest in something other than classic film, AS SOON as I come back, and start blogging again, and get all giddy, and silly, and having fun with it, and catching up, BOOM, my daughter gets sick again, and I'm busy at her bedside. Which is fine. I know blogging is a one, and motherhood is a ten on the whole 'Scale of what's Important in Life', but it just seems to be a rule, now. A jinx! The second I let my guard down, she gets sick again.
But like I said, not a single ailment all summer. Then she goes back to school at the end of August. The second week there, she comes down with strep throat and runs the worst fever of her life! And I thought, "Okay, she hasn't been sick in a long time. I can handle this. I can do this! I'm just grateful we made it through the summer..."
Five days of high fever. Ten days of penicillin. Finally she's better, and back to school (after missing an entire week), so I thought, "Okay, Ginger, relax. Back to blogging now. Surely you're in the clear, for a while, at least..."
Never wanting to blog in the summer, for knowing I couldn't be good to anyone, and knowing I would only jinx my self and my daughter, and make her sick.
Ha. That's how I think. I know it doesn't make sense, but at the time -- or always, really -- due to my depression, I'm incapable of knowing when I make sense, or when I THINK I make sense.
Now she's sick again, and I don't think I can handle it. Like going swimming when you haven't slept. I'm too tired. Afraid of drowning. Afraid of tying bricks to my own feet, and diving in, and saying, "Well, okay, that's it."
__________________
"I know, sweetheart," I said at bedtime, as I tucked her in. But then I started crying, too. And I couldn't STOP crying.
I come out of the cave, and I let my guard down. With a bored soul, I want to create! I want to have fun! I want to connect with people. I make an ass of myself.
Then it starts to rain. Acid rain, and me unsheltered. If I just stay in my cave, I don't feel as bad when something 'scary' happens; I'm already depressed; try all you like -- rain all you like! -- you can't make water any wetter.
I need to stay in my cave. Come out in the sun (in the mental sense) and there goes the sun and here comes the acid rain, and I feel horrible now. My chest hurts, and I'm nervous, and I can't stop shaking.
The one thing I've failed to mention about my absence, other than the movies I watched and the obsessions I lost (sorry, Kids), is in June, I had to have an EKG. My chest hurt. My arm went numb. The entire side of my left body was in horrible pain. From my jaw and neck, all the way down to my back and ribcage.
Same old thing. Heart is fine. It's nerves. It's stress. It's depression. It's lack of sleep. It's the doctor asking me a million questions. "Are you suicidal? -- Homicidal?!"
Ha. I'd like to cry every time a butterfly hits my windshield!
As if I'd ever hurt anyone on purpose.
...
I went outside tonight, to take out the trash, and feed the cats. I looked up, and saw the Moon; a yellow moon, with a halo of haze about it, as it were giving off heat.
Usually the Moon looks so cold, and white. Blue. Lonely insomniac, waiting for dawn. And now it's trying to warm up the sky?
I'm confused.
"Don't make an ass of yourself, Moon."
To move the oceans, in quiet, is probably the best thing for you...
And here I am, on the verge of writing poetry; not blogging about classic film, but back to my yammering. My depressing train-of-thought. I should be in bed, trying to sleep, but it's so quiet there. So lonely.
Can you see I'm bipolar??
The Moon is blue/the Moon is yellow.
It's visible.
...
I'm tired of feeling ashamed.
________________________
5 comments:
I hope your daughter will be well soon.
Ginger, you are allright. Please take all the time you need. I am sure your late friend understood your feelings. A true friend does.
With a little bit of my love and caring..
I.
The actual human problem is: We're mortal and we can ponder our own mortality. Most people don't speak it out, but the human crux is mainly fear of death. That is normal, it is absolutely human.
Once I heard a radio interview of an old man - a writer. He said he never thought about death while he was younger, but now he was just horrified. He had missed to consider that and now it all overwhelmed him. - So you start just in time, Ginger. And so you have good chances to learn to accept mortality over the years.
Your 26? Well, at that age Jean Arthur was almost unknown - just doing cheap silent-movies. When they shot "Mr. Deeds" she was 35 and don't tell me she was old! But it's better still: At the age of 40 she had a 22 years old leading man in ARIZONA and she looked great. And did she look bad in A FOREIGN AFFAIR, at age 47?
Depression is nothing but negative ideas. Somebody put those into you when you was a child - instead of encouraging you as it should have been. You have reasons enough to get rid of those negative thoughts, not to influence your child that way. Negative ideas can be like kind of infection - this is a reason why many people avoid depressed individuals, in order not to become depressed too (without knowing about that risk).
If you're sick, you can't visit your friend in the hospital of course. Maybe you're trying to be better than any human being can be - trying to be an angel? I like you very much, if you're sad because of a dead butterfly. I have a very special relationship to bugs - even feed them with honey sometimes.
Whatever Ginger, you have reasons enough to cut out feeling guilty, because this takes away a lot of that positive energy you actually need for your child.
Frl. Irene Palfy: Thank you. I appreciate your kindness, and for caring enough to read, and comment.
It's nice to meet you. :)
...
Clarissa Smith -- wife of Jefferson Smith. ;)
Thank you, also. Your words are wise and comforting.
As for contemplating mortality: I think I started TOO young, you know? I became so convinced I was gonna die at age 13, my childhood boyfriend of two years broke up with me. He said I was too depressed and morbid.
Yep, age 26. For some reason, Blogger isn't showing my age anymore. Just the fact that I'm a Libra...I'll be twenty seven at the first of the month.
Yeah, I knew our beloved Jean was a bit older when she finally became famous. Still gorgeous, though, wasn't she? :)
I just FEEL old, you know? Older than I should be.
I agree with you, about infecting others with depression. That's why I don't like to even write this sort of post. It's too long, too depressing. TOO MUCH SADNESS.
As for my child: I know it's not good for her to be with me the way I am. But I figure a depressed mother is better than no mother.
Thanks again, for sharing your thoughts. :)
I'm afraid I was an awful smarty. Human beings are so complex. Now I see you're much more sophisticated than it seems in your 'show'.
I even admire you Ginger. I have no kid, no car. But I can imagine how it is, if the kid is sick and the car is striking at the same time. Well, my nerves aren't too strong ... might start crying then ... ;)
Although she was pretty tough, our beloved Jean had weak nerves too. :)
Ginger, you are welcome ;")- and please:
Don't you ever play ideal world to your child - my mother did and we children allways noticed - After all your daughter surely understands that you can't allways be happy and every one has the right to feel tired and sad sometimes.
That is normal and nothing to feel guilty about.
And: Every Mom who goes and watches Fred with her daughter is most caring!! (Honestly: Respect, lady!) :"D
I enjoy your blog very much!
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