I should have seen it coming. In fact, I did.
It's fall--a time of year in which I either feel extremely happy or extremely despondent, rarely anything in between. We're coming up on the one-year anniversary of my mother's death. The days are shortening. I have recently had knee surgery, and it was harder than I thought it would be, and the recovery is taking what seems to me to be a long time. So here we are: I am depressed.
Nothing dramatic happens; I just gradually go away. Last night I had the image of myself as a kind of hologram, getting grayer and more colorless, and then fading out of the picture. My kids sense it: they are super clingy and hug me at every opportunity. Suzanne has in the past few days taken to coming up to me at odd moments and saying, "I loooooooovvvee you," which is of course true, and my love for her is so intense it hurts, but then a five-year-old shouldn't feel the need to say that to mommy so often. Rebecca just lays her head on my shoulder. "Snuggle," she commands, and I do. She is nearly 10; the snuggling years are passing fast. "How are you feeling?" my husband asks, meangingfully, and I say, "Not great," and he says, "Your mom?" and I say, "Yes," and then I say, "I'm going to bed." I leave him watching football. I want to be with them, I do; I am lonely in here. But the bell jar, as Sylvia Plath called it, descends, and it is soundproof.
All I can do is keep getting up. I am going to the gym right now, even though I'd give anything to just crawl back into bed. I plod along. One foot. In front. Of the other. And meanwhile time passes, life passes, and joy passes, and I am not present.