Through the Static and Distance..

Farewell Transmission 

They say depression is carried all the way back from your ancestors. From what I know of just my immediate family I would have to say this is true for myself. The trials and hard times were apparent to me as a child, only to have been put on the back burner when my father began to work a better job that paid more. It also kept him far from home which was a bonus for me..we didn't get along very well. But that's another story for another time.

There were stories from my mother about destitute poverty that they lived in in the first years of their marriage in the big city. Stories about not having money to get home from work in a sewing factory and having to sell postage stamps at the bus stop to make it home. Eating pots of mashed potatoes for meals on end. Procuring furniture and curtains for their small home from the dumpsters outside of work or throughout the city.

Theirs was an American story. By the time I was around there was a good home, a full fridge and a pickup truck in the driveway. I had all the things a kid could want, my own room, lots of hair ribbons and stuffed animals, pink wall paper and a pink fluffy bed of my own. I had a creek behind my house I could play in for hours and a big circle neighborhood I could ride my bike on all summer long. But inside I've always been sad.

I was the kid who could cry at the drop of  handkerchief. I was terrified of my father, cats, the dark, the canopy on my bed, the closet and people not liking me. I could listen to a sad song and cry for hours after I had heard it, one most notably was Sloop John B by the Beach Boys. I wrote a poem about that whole incident. I still don't think anyone understands what it feels like to be so aware of mortality at such a young age, and the mystery of why I was so privy to that understanding. I had night terrors at an early age about just being invisible.. fading away..basically being dead and no one even knowing I was there in the first place. The scariest one was of the playground at school being empty and desolate, the swings swaying in the wind and the dust picking up the dirt and the teeter totters without anyone riding them. I would scream all night with these images in my head and I can still see these images clearly now. How strange for a 5 year old to have an existential crisis. Sometimes I wonder why no one thought that was strange? What could have been done to change that in me?

I've had much foreboding on death throughout my life. All of this spells out Trauma. Really deep trauma from a time I still cannot recall, but it must have been before I was having these dreams. I'm not an armchair psychologist, but I do know when something is wrong. Really wrong for the picture of my past. A big black wall covering something I won't allow myself to remember. In passing sometimes a trace of sadness, fear or uncertainty. I see my face.. my sweet chubby legs running away as fast as they can.

Now that I am beginning to unravel these memories, I can't remember a time of being completely care free. I think this is why I make such a big deal out of things now. I like parties, nights out, social events, cookouts. For a while I hosted many events and made sure everyone of them was a big fun night out for everyone. It made me feel good to bring that to people, especially my friends who I feel can relate to all these things I just wrote about. I love my friends. I hate that I isolate from them so frequently. Sometimes I go for months without any contact.

I don't know if I am every going to change. I just hold on to the next spike of glorious freedom from sadness.. as I know it is coming again, as quickly as it left.

Right now, I'm not sad so much as I am tired of all of it.