It wasn’t the way she remembered it.

Sometimes she would try to tell her husband how she felt, and he would look at her with that expression he had, the one with the raised eyebrows and the crinkly smile right at the corners of his mouth, as if he were trying to keep from laughing, and the feelings would dissipate, as if swallowed whole by his disbelief.

She’d turn away then, so he couldn’t see her confusion as she tried to remember what she’d been feeling, what she was trying to say.

Words were so much harder now than they had ever been before. They had faded away, along with her appetite and good looks, and contentment, which had once seemed to have no end to its abundance.

She was no longer content, not with her life or her place in the world, and she didn’t quite know what had happened to it. There were days when she thought her husband, the fourth, had stolen it from her, and she would yell at him to give it back, that she knew what he’d done.

And when she did, he did not look at her bemusedly, but with disdain and an impatience that flew across his face like an afternoon storm. That wasn’t as bad as what followed though, his conciliatory tone, “Rach, you’ve forgotten again.”

She was fairly certain she had three children, or maybe it was two. Maybe four. When she couldn’t remember she would take out the pictures labeled “family” to see if it would come back to her, but she couldn’t tell from the pictures of smiling children if they were the same people in later photos, grown up and mugging for the camera. She thought sometimes she might have five or six children because they looked so different from one time to another. She’d stopped asking her husband because he always sighed, as if she were intentionally forgetting.

In the afternoons she’d go to her room at the end of the hall, though sometimes she wasn’t sure if it was her room or the room of her daughter, if she had a daughter, and she’d stretch out on the big bed covered in the quilt she was fairly certain that someone who looked like her had made once, and she’d sleep for an hour, maybe two.

And in her afternoon sleep she would remember her life the way it was, all the joy and all the sorrow, all mixed together like it is in life, her children the proper number, her husbands too. She’d wake up with a smile because that had been her life, and she loved it all, when she could remember how it had been.

She never dreamed at night, only in the afternoons, and so she never missed an afternoon nap, and every day she woke up from it she wished she could sleep more, if only to remember who she had been.

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It wasn’t the way she remembered it.

Sometimes she would try to tell her husband how she felt, and he would look at her with that expression he had, the one with the raised eyebrows and the crinkly smile right at the corners of his mouth, as if he were trying to keep from laughing, and the feelings would dissipate, as if swallowed whole by his disbelief.

She’d turn away then, so he couldn’t see her confusion as she tried to remember what she’d been feeling, what she was trying to say.

Words were so much harder now than they had ever been before. They had faded away, along with her appetite and good looks, and contentment, which had once seemed to have no end to its abundance.

She was no longer content, not with her life or her place in the world, and she didn’t quite know what had happened to it. There were days when she thought her husband, the fourth, had stolen it from her, and she would yell at him to give it back, that she knew what he’d done.

And when she did, he did not look at her bemusedly, but with disdain and an impatience that flew across his face like an afternoon storm. That wasn’t as bad as what followed though, his conciliatory tone, “Rach, you’ve forgotten again.”

She was fairly certain she had three children, or maybe it was two. Maybe four. When she couldn’t remember she would take out the pictures labeled “family” to see if it would come back to her, but she couldn’t tell from the pictures of smiling children if they were the same people in later photos, grown up and mugging for the camera. She thought sometimes she might have five or six children because they looked so different from one time to another. She’d stopped asking her husband because he always sighed, as if she were intentionally forgetting.

In the afternoons she’d go to her room at the end of the hall, though sometimes she wasn’t sure if it was her room or the room of her daughter, if she had a daughter, and she’d stretch out on the big bed covered in the quilt she was fairly certain that someone who looked like her had made once, and she’d sleep for an hour, maybe two.

And in her afternoon sleep she would remember her life the way it was, all the joy and all the sorrow, all mixed together like it is in life, her children the proper number, her husbands too. She’d wake up with a smile because that had been her life, and she loved it all, when she could remember how it had been.

She never dreamed at night, only in the afternoons, and so she never missed an afternoon nap, and every day she woke up from it she wished she could sleep more, if only to remember who she had been.

I live with anxiety, especially since my surgery earlier this year, an easy surgery that many people have every day, and the surgery itself went fine, but the patient, she never fully recovered.

After the surgery I descended into a depression so deep and foul I could barely hang on. I hated myself so intensely, but was too lethargic to do anything about it.

The anti-depressants I’d been on for years either stopped working, or weren’t working enough, and somehow, somewhere, I’d completely lost my way.

I despaired of ever finding a way out, a way back to myself.

I just corrected paragraph 3, because I inadvertently typed “hate” instead of “hated.” Past tense. I do not hate myself any longer. I hate what has happened to me, and I hate that I am still struggling to find my place in the world, and I hate that for a few months I thought myself a goner, for sure, lost to the world.

I am not famous, nor important, except to a devoted circle of friends and loved ones. You won’t see me splashed across the front page of the news no matter what happens to me. This is good. I cannot imagine having to reclaim my life while the world watches. I can barely stand to watch myself.

Depression kills, that’s what I’m supposed to say. It kills relationships, it kills self-sufficiency, it kills the tiny spark of genius that everyone has, from time to time. It turns down the lights, and it makes the room so dim there’s not much chance of traversing it without stubbing a toe.

That’s a metaphorical toe, of course, because it’s a metaphorical darkness. It’s within.

I want the lightness back, the self-sufficiency, the knowledge that I am good enough, damnit, and that people do like me. I have part of that back.

When one is in the depths of the darkness one is not a part of the world. Down there, we’re outside of the world, and even if there are others of us outside, all we can see from there is the glittering shiny world of what we perceive to be everyone else.

“Everyone would be better off if I weren’t here,” is a phrase I am familiar with. Don’t point me to a sappy movie which proves we all have a place. The movie is fiction, and it’s about one person, and that one person is not me.

“They won’t even miss me,” is also something I’m certain of when the darkness is so complete.

Maybe, maybe not. Who am I to know?

But this is where I am now: I want back in. I want back in so badly. I want to throw dinner parties, and I want to travel and see friends, and I want to work, and then work some more, and I want to delight in the sun, in my dog’s enthusiasm, and I want to make a better life for me, my husband, my dog, my friends. I want back in, and I want it so badly.

I may have burned some bridges during the darkest time, I don’t know, but I’m willing to rebuild and I’m willing to work to get it all back.

I’ve burned bridges during dark times before, with my family mostly, who generally thinks I’m a nutcase better suited for distance and the occasional text.

I’m tired of burning bridges. I have a husband who has hung in there during the darkest times, taking care of me, the way I took care of my previous husband during his darkest times. But this is different, because I had to divorce the previous husband, but this husband is, I’m fairly certain, not going to divorce me.

I want to live and I want to be happy, and I want a full rich life and I know it’s possible. I can see it from here. Every day I see flashes and glimpses of what’s behind the curtain, and every day I work at bringing that certainty home.

If you live in darkness I want you to know what’s possible outside of it. I want you to know there is life and while it may seem messy and full of problems, it’s still life, and it’s still beautiful, and we are still, each of us, sources of light, each in our own way.

Each source of light adds up and gives us more light to see with.

Fight the dimming of yours. There were times when I was too weak to fight it, I just let it be, I didn’t have anything left to give it. But I’m back now, and I’m going to fight this motherfucking darkness as hard as I can, because the world is too beautiful and full of life and people I love for me to not fight for it.

It’s still there, and it’s just waiting.

“Your children, they’re beautiful,” I said, because they were, and because I wanted to say something, anything, to break the silence.

You nodded, agreeing with me, as of course you would.

You sat on the flimsy patio chair as if on edge, unable to relax even when relaxation was the point, or maybe that was why. You always fought against doing things because you were supposed to, or feeling things you thought you should feel. Instead, you grappled with life as if it were the enemy, as if what came naturally must be wrong, as if wrestling with each minute decision had to be the right thing to do, if only because it were harder that way.

Not me. I went with the flow, did things as they presented themselves, and never gave them another thought. It’s how I ended up with children, because while it hadn’t been my intent, they had shown up anyway, because I hadn’t thought ahead, nor considered what would happen next.

Melinda came out on the porch then, slight but sturdy, all bubbles and light. I often wondered how she came to be your wife, she was so contrary to you, but maybe that was why. Maybe you needed that contrast to keep the darkness bearable.

“Caleb! Miranda!” She called to your children, and they both looked up, sunny surprise on their faces, as if they’d forgotten we were there at all. “Come get more sunscreen!” Melinda held a can of spray in one hand, and your children came running to us, and then my children followed, and it became a race, and then four children exploded onto the porch in a spray of sand.

Some of the sand got in my eye, and I wiped at it, but that only made it worse, and my eye started to water, and when you looked at me, just a glance, really, all you could spare for me, you thought I was crying.

“What’s wrong now?” you asked, but there wasn’t anything wrong, nothing new anyway.

“I’m fine,” I said, and while Melinda sprayed the kids with sunblock you looked as me as if I were lying, and for a minute I thought maybe I was.

You always had that effect on me, of making me think I were wrong, that I didn’t even know my own truth, and I wasn’t sure how much of that was true.

The kids went running back to the sand, back to their buckets and shovels.

“You two all right out here?” Melinda asked, pausing for just a second to see us nod, you first, then me, following your lead, before she headed back inside, where she was doing something useful. Melinda survived life by being useful, by getting things done, by being the person everyone else counted on.

And I, I was the one no one counted on.

“What do you want?” you asked then, certain I had some ulterior motive.

“I don’t want anything,” I said, “I just wanted us all to be here together.”

You shook your head then, not believing me, thinking I was up to something.

Caleb ran out into the surf then, his arms wide out, and as he plowed out into the cold water he shrieked with the cold of it.

You went after him then, the good father, to make sure he didn’t go out any farther, to keep him and Miranda and even my children safe, your long strides making shadows on the beach longer than any of us, attenuated and thin, and I watched your shadow walk away from me, and I wondered where it had all gone wrong.

This was from a dream I had last night. Sometimes I dream stories and
images, sometimes when I wake up I try to capture them, and sometimes I
can, and sometimes I can’t because I don’t have the words to paint a
picture of an image, and it fades away so quickly. This time I swyped it
out on my phone before getting up, part of it, anyway, the part I could
remember.

———————————————————————————

It had been her idea to stop, she couldn’t walk another step, and it wasn’t as if they had anywhere to go, or anywhere to be. “I’m so tired Robert, I just want to nap for a bit.”

He looked at her with those beautiful aquamarine eyes, and said of course, it’s not as if they had anywhere to be, or anywhere to go.

And so even though they were on the street, at the corner of Mercy and Hope, they sat down.

It wasn’t a busy intersection, but the cars still went by, mostly on Mercy, with less traffic on Hope, but no one saw them.

No one ever did.

She hadn’t known him for long, only a month or so, but life on the streets passed so slowly she felt as if she’d known him forever. Knew his shambling gait, the way he would lower himself to the ground as if he were melting into it, careful not to dislodge even one bone of his lanky sleek body.

She knew he was sick, though he’d never said so.

She knew his story, and he knew hers. They were stories no one else wanted to hear, and so they told each other in hushed whispers, as if others were listening though no one was.

She had a blanket she carried with her, because she was always cold, and she wrapped it around herself while listening to Robert talk.

“It’s a good day, Amanda,” and she had to agree that indeed it was a good day, not too sunny, overcast like they liked it, a bit windy, but not too much. The sun was too much brightness into the dark corners and there was no escaping it, so they loved the days with clouds.

She laid down then, just wanting a bit if sleep, and then Robert laid down too, on his side, his feet by her head, facing her, so he could look at her while she slept.

She noticed how much redder his face was today, his cheeks an angry umber, though anger was not a word she associated with him. He kept talking, and before she drifted off she heard him say, “Might take a bit of sleep myself.”

When she woke it was an hour or so later, maybe two or three, but not yet dark, the time of day that usually, before she met Robert, had made her sad with its potential and heartbreak for the next day. He had changed that for her, talking her through the slow nightfall so she no longer feared it. She saw him then, right where he’d been when she had fallen asleep, his eyes closed and his face drained of color, and she knew he was gone.

She thought she should have been sad, but she wasn’t, and she smiled to herself, and then she went back to sleep to join him, giving not a thought to whoever would find them.