Morbidity and Mortality

When I look back at my last posting (which was way too long ago), I feel like it was the emotional equivalent of a data dump. I feel a sense of shame for exposing myself like that (albeit to the few people who read this blog...). In fact, it reminds me of a book that I read when I was a teenager, called Down a Dark Hall. This book, by Lois Duncan, depicted the tale of a group of teenagers who were sent to a supposedly high-quality boarding school that was actually something far more creepy. The school accepted kids with some kind of hidden artistic or musical gift, then each night – by some kind of evil magical process – they created paintings or musical compositions or some other piece of art in their dreams. In the morning, they didn’t remember much, and they certainly didn’t remember how they created the art. The problem was, after a while the kids would start to burn out. For example, one boy was creating appealing paintings, but after a few months he started to paint horrible, tortured scenes. And that’s what the most recent entry of my blog feels like to me. I feel like it’s gone bad. I don’t think it’s jumped the shark, but I do feel like I need to dig myself out of this morbid place that I’ve become enmeshed in. Then I’ll be able to focus on things like my childhood and adolescent predilection for morbid tales.

And the only way I can think to dig myself out is to write on. I could erase my blog posting, and maybe I still will, but that wouldn’t change things. And the google could probably still find it, unfortunately. It helps me to write it, and hopefully I can move on soon from this negative place. And, of course, I’m not feeling this negative all the time. But lately I noticed I’ve been feeling sad. When I see young families at Starbucks, for example, I feel sad. I’m sad because with kids ages 8, almost 6, and nearly 3, we’re no longer a young family. We’re essentially a school-age family. And for much of the time when we actually were a young family, I had serious reservations about B. But for some of that time I also had hope. And I believe that one reason I feel sad – am I grieving – is for the loss of that hope. And at the same time I grieve for the fact that I had it, for the fact that I believed naively and hopefully that with some intervention and work, B and I could become a couple facing the same direction, laughing at shared jokes, and enjoying and jointly raising our kids together. I saw a path to us being that happy young family. But how can I live happily with someone who curses when he sees something out of place, kicks my curlers across the room, yells at the kids for what he considers rudeness at the table, assumes that 2 weeks post-partum I’ll drive my friend on icy roads to the Metro because he (B) had too much wine to drive, isn’t willing to take a job that he considers below him (“I didn’t come here to wash floors”) even when our family needed the money, refused to come to our daughter’s baby naming ceremony, makes snide and obscene remarks at the table when I attempt to say grace…okay, I’m devolving to that morbid place again. Thinking about the bad stuff helps to strengthen my resolve, and it helps deflect the sadness.

But the sadness is there. Part of it may just be the sadness of middle age. (Yes, I’m middle aged – that is, if people can live to 90.) Earlier this week, when I walked to the National Gallery during lunch, I was struck by a series of paintings entitled “The Voyage of Life,” by Thomas Cole. They showed an infant in a boat, watched over by a protective spirit, a young man sailing off to find his fortune, a middle aged man in stormy waters faced with obstacles and being helped by faith, and an old man being shown the way to heaven by the same spirit that’s been with him his whole life. I felt a sense of recognition when I saw the middle-aged man. The blurb next to the painting talked about the sense of desolation and sadness that comes when you get to a certain point in life, as well as the rough waters we inevitably encounter. In this painting, the holy spirit is sustaining the main, if he is willing to see it. So, there was some hope there, and the way the artist used light and darkness to portray these ideas was great (to my untutored eye). My point is that perhaps sadness and darkness are things that come with middle age, and you need to incorporate it into your life and welcome it in a productive way. (By productive, I don’t mean industrious. I mean incorporating it in a way that will add meaning to your life and enable you to function and give.) And maybe life isn’t something that gets easier and easier as you achieve more and more. Maybe your achievements are the wisdom, skills, and supports you develop that enable you to deal with life’s inevitable challenges.

Which brings me back to my sad marriage, and the situation with B. The sadness I feel is because of how things are with us and even more so how things could have been but can’t. But it’s also because there is sadness in the world and in life, and it’s okay to feel it. In fact, it’s better to acknowledge it than to run away from it, because accepting it is what helps us to move through it, or perhaps with it.

The mother of a friend of Philip’s, who I’d like to get to know better, uses the following as a tag line on her e-mail – “What to do in Darkness: Go slowly. Consent to it. But don't wallow in it. Know it as a place of germination and growth. Remember the light. Take an outstretched hand if you find one. Exercise unused senses. Find the path by walking it. Practice trust. Watch for dawn.” That definitely resonated with me. To view darkness as a place of germination -- the word “germinate” calls to mind the real-life seeds I keep meaning to plant in my amateurish garden -- means to accept gracefully that life is a process and that it does move on. Maybe these ideas will help me to move out of my place of darkness and morbidity or perhaps to gratefully acknowledge that sunshine can and does co-exist with darkness.