Miles of Yarn

One of the first things I learned was to pay attention. When I was depressed in 2000, I was suicidal, and tried twice, with full intent, to kill myself. When the veil of depression lifted just a little, I was then nearly crushed with the realization that death is just around the corner all the time for all of us; I realized how extraordinary and precious everything is, and I walked around in a state of total wonder. In time that sense of awe retreated, which was good, because it turns out to be uncomfortable to coexist with that much awareness of mortality, and I was new at it and had a lot of other stuff going on. But I revisited it over the years, and have gotten better at living with it, and it’s made an enormous difference in how I experience my life. I can ask myself (and you can too) -- am I doing what I want to be doing right now? Is this how I want to spend my time? And if not, what can I do to change that? This works at any level of zoom. Do I want to eat this piece of junk food? Do I want to work at this job? How can I do the most good in the world?

I have also learned that living this way and asking these questions increases my daily satisfaction immeasurably. If I know that I really enjoyed the last meal I ate, that I saw how beautiful the morning glories against the fence are, that I have told the people I love that I love them -- well, I’m not going to step in front of a bus on purpose, but I’ll be at peace, come what may.

Another big component of getting a grip on my sanity was learning that it’s okay to experience feelings. I started out, as we all do, with a really simplistic, rather childlike belief system about emotions. And then I kept it for almost thirty years. I didn’t like to feel strong emotions or have negative thoughts because I felt they would affect the world around me. Pure magical thinking. The clearest example I can think of is that I used to have escape fantasies. And then I would excoriate myself for them as though I’d actually gone through with them. So I’d think, “Wow, I am fucking everything up and my life sucks and everything is terrible and I want to run away and join the navy or drive an eighteen-wheeler or go to a town where no one knows me and work as a waitress.” And then I’d think, “What kind of terrible human being would abandon all her responsibilities to do something like that? Me. I am a terrible person.”

It has taken years to realize that my feelings are simultaneously important, and worth respecting, and transient, and worth ignoring. Getting the balance right is tricky, but I’m working on it.

Feeling anger or sadness or anxiety or fear -- it’s all okay. What I do as a result of that is what matters. And so maybe I write it all down, or I talk to someone, or I think of a way to treat myself well, or I set aside time to figure out how to not be in the situation bringing up all the shit. But I don’t drown it out with mere distractions. And I don’t quit my job and leave my lover and run away to Juneau or Barcelona with no notice (even though quitting a job or leaving a lover or moving somewhere new can all be valid choices). I’ve learned that the feelings themselves can’t kill me, can’t harm anyone else, they just are. And so I lean into them and learn what they can teach me.

The third Really Big Thing I started to learn after my breakdown in 2000 was that I could let my friends be my friends. When I was suicidal, no one knew until after I’d been in the hospital. I was both incredibly ashamed and incredibly relieved -- there was no hiding to be done any longer. So I started, hesitantly, talking to friends about what I was going through, and an amazing transition occurred -- I felt closer and more connected to people than I ever had in my life. I’d thought I would be despised for being so vulnerable, so ridiculous and weak and crazy. And instead I found my friends loved me anyway. Learning to let them was astonishingly hard (and seeing how hard it’s been has been it’s own occasion for rueful tears), but well worth the effort. Over the years I’ve gone from thinking I was uniquely fucked up and unfixable, to recognizing that everyone in my community was a bit broken, to finally beginning to grok our common humanity. I’m just like my friend and just like my mom, just like E.E. Cummings or King Lear or the Buddha. And we all fear death and cherish our lovers and hang on to happiness and try like hell to get through the days. Sharing my inner life, and letting the people I know share theirs, has made my experience of the world rich with meaning. Despite that fancy English degree I got when I was twenty, I’m just now feeling up to understanding all the literature I’ve read over the years.

So. I may not be the very sanest person I know, but I’m far from mad, and that’s some of how I got from there to here. May it be of use.