November 3, 2014
Monday

“I believe in divinity,” he told me. “I believe in grace.”
— Aryn Kyle, b. 1978, American fiction writer
from The God of Animals

It started the last week in September, a darkening of mood, an inability to concentrate, other early warning signs of depression. I thought at first it was Post-Holiday Letdown Syndrome. I was a guest at a wedding I’d looked forward to that was beautiful and joyous but not without its emotional complications. A week later I attended a retirement dinner for the pastor whose congregation I joined when I had my spiritual awakening in 1980. At the first event, I was accepted as a friend into a circle of people I didn’t really know. At the second, I was greeted by name by people I hadn’t seen in more than 20 years, who asked after Lynn, after Ron, after my writing.

Even good emotional experiences can lead to a brief period of fatigue and sighing that runs its course and then goes away. I treated the symptom. I ate when I was hungry and rested when I was tired. I moodled with the fiction. I took the short gallivant to Pittsburgh. We had lunch at Lynn and Matt’s, with his parents, too. Ron’s eye surgery on October 23 went perfectly, no complications this time. By Halloween everything was back to normal.

Except “normal” seemed a little off. I was scattered, missing beats. I would draw up a list of things to do, and then not know where or how to start. And even though I accomplished everything on the list I made for October 31, I felt inordinately sad.

My daily message from Timehop, the service that collects my Facebook updates for years gone by, informed me that on November 1, 2012 I posted a link to an article about Seasonal Affective Disorder. “Hello darkness, my old friend,” I wrote then. I reposted it, adding “I am having a pretty hard time right now. I feel gripped by a depression that has no external cause. I am walking with Melanie, my Black Bitch (a black Labrador, the embodiment of my depression). I bless those who walk with me.”

The response startled me. I had not expected such a show of support. People I didn’t think read my Facebook remarks came forward with encouragement. I rallied, started a list of accomplishments no matter how small (a strategy suggested in a guide for living with depression that I have sometimes used), made my work plans for the coming week. I want to do a major revision of a manuscript to send out on November 29. I need an even deeper revision  — actually a rewrite — for a December 15 deadline. I planned my work sessions. I went to bed with hope.

This morning I began in the usual way, with C&C (Coffee and Contemplation) —an hour of prayer, journal writing, and reading. I went to the gym and lasted through 35 minutes of a Zumba class. I had a nutritious breakfast, high in protein and low in the refined carbohydrates that exacerbate in me the fatigue of depression. I came to my computer, opened my work folders, and reviewed my plans.

And then I stopped. I just stopped. I alternated between looking out the window, sighing, and reading, again and again, the first page of my story. I felt paralyzed. My characters are an almost-widow and the hospital chaplain who is working with her. She has to make the decision to withdraw life support from her husband, according to his wishes in this regard. The chaplain has to help her come to peace with what she must do. I was afraid to make that fall into fiction, to enter the state where I am no longer myself, but that woman, that priest, doing what they must do.

I closed the file. All I wanted to do was go back to bed. I thought of Wendy McClure’s moment of truth after a Weight Watchers meeting: “I wish I had a big warm loaf of bread the size of a Honda Civic, so that I could chew my way inside and fall asleep in it.” I fought tears.

The email is time-stamped 10:23. It was from the director of development at Bishop McDevitt High School, my alma mater. They need help, she said, getting out the big fall fundraising letter Could I spare a few hours, today if possible, for the folding and the stuffing and the stamping?

I almost said no. I hadn’t styled my hair, just let it air-dry and shake out in a kind of blowsy halo. I have a gift to mail and I need to write the letter that goes with it. We are out of aluminum foil and bath soap. I really need to work on . . . I thought of one excuse after another. Then I shut down the computer, ran a comb through my hair and put on a fresh turtleneck and sweater, and was folding commitment forms by noon.

I spent the afternoon at a conference table, with other friendly volunteers. Then I went down to the library and followed up on some matters I had let slide. I will be back there tomorrow, and Wednesday if it’s needed. I am no less in the grip of depression than I was yesterday, or this morning as I sighed in front of my blinking courser. Melanie the Black Bitch still walks with me, but she’s not tugging so violently at the leash.

Before today, I had met the director of development only a few times. Last March, when I visited the school to start work on my class’s milestone reunion coming up, we became Facebook friends. Did she read my status updates regarding depression? Or did some other force send me into her awareness as she cast about for people who might be available, during the day and on short notice, to help with a time-sensitive project?

I believe in divinity. I believe in grace.