Iris has been alive out here in the world almost as long as she was alive inside of me. I'm not sure why this milestone matters, but I've been yearning for it with some kind of superstitious fervor...perhaps if she reaches that date alive she'll finally be free of my death-dealing body and be safe.
Sounds harsh, yes. But I'm learning I have to be more honest with my word choices if I'm going to come out of this alive too, or at least without destroying everything that matters. Fear and depression have been complicated by the unique demands of post-partum depression. I am afraid anything I love will die soon, tragically, and destroy the world with its death. I know these thoughts are not really mine, so I let my children ride in cars and play in waves and try new foods. But each of these things terrify me. It has been destroying me slowly, and taking my marriage down with it. And I wind up feeling like I'm struggling for my life, once again, and that thought triggers another avalanche of depression....those real life-and-death struggles that occurred where birth was supposed to be make it so hard to rationalize my way out of this darkness. I have no fight left.
I can only surrender.
(And if you go back to things I wrote during Iris's pregnancy, "surrender" was the theme all along.)
But surrendering to depression could be fatal. I do not surrender to it. I surrender to LIFE. I surrender to its tenacity and persistence and inevitability. I surrender to love. I surrender to joy. It takes all my blind strength and faith to do this...letting love and joy back in is the most dangerous choice I can make. It means, eventually, I will get hurt again. Please God, just don't let it mean more tiny urns on my dresser. (Shut up, depression!)
Yesterday we went to the ocean. We went to a darling Maine seacoast town, on a perfect day, on Labor Day Weekend. It was packed. I felt overwhelmed and upset and claustrophobic as we drove in circles trying to find a parking spot to get some lunch. I wanted to freak out. So we left all that touristy adorableness and headed for the beach. Mother's Beach. No parking spots there either. We unpacked the screaming kids and piled kids and blankets and bags onto the stroller and Derrick drove off to find a place to park the car. I discovered my heavy double stroller wouldn't budge an inch in the sand. I felt stupid, and flustered. There was no shade and I started to put sunblock on the baby and realized the bottle was empty. More panic. No food, no sunblock, no way to move the kids...but Derrick returned and we asked the lifeguard where to find lunch and he pointed us up the road and said it was about a mile. Fearing the meltdowns if we loaded the kids back up in the car, we walked. And it was peaceful and quiet in the neighborhood we found ourselves in. Lunch was delicious and everyone was happy. I had struggled through the darkness and found peace. We returned to the beach a new family.
That's worth repeating: we returned to the beach a new family. Love flowed in all directions. On the way back my husband and I flirted and held hands and kissed. The baby slept. The toddler ate the lunch she was too distracted to eat earlier. So with full bellies and full hearts we found ourselves on the softest sand, with rolling waves slowing our heartbeats to something more life-filled and true. We spread an old quilt on the wet sand to be near the water and explored fabulous tide pools and let the sun warm our souls (I got more sunscreen at the diner!!!). Orion was present in all of nature. We laughed and played with waves, to the music of Scarlet shouting to the ocean, "More, please!" and the squeals of pure joy bubbling from Iris. It was magic. And then Scarlet ran too fast and there were rocks just under the surface of the water and she fell. I was a hand-length too far away and she went under. I grabbed her and ran for the shore, heart pounding, blinded by fear. She was fine, of course - just said her eyes stung. But my chest hurt and my heart was beating too fast and I wanted to cry. Scarlet wanted to run back to the fun immediately, so daddy ran off with her while I snuggled the baby on our old quilt and found my center again. And it didn't ruin anything.
I won't claim a day at the beach will cure depression. Depression, true depression, is a chemical imbalance. Its as real and as deadly as cancer. It is not sadness, it can not be loved away.
But a day at the beach occurred at just the right moment for my little family. We found each other again, after a year and a half of fear tearing us apart. There will still be bad days again, I'm sure. But we've been hanging on through it all due to this blind hope that some day, somehow, we would find each other through the eyes of love again. The darkness would lift and hopefully something salvageable would still be there. We went home covered in salt and sand, scrubbed off the old skin of fear and regret and anger and bitterness and blame, and came out with fresh souls sparkling in the joy of pure love.
p.s. we went to Mother's Beach because they have an awesome playground, but when it comes to "ocean and rocks and tide pools" vs "huge creative playground"...no contest. We had to walk straight through the playground to get to the beach and Scarlet didn't even slow down. :)
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