I got up at the crack of dawn to shovel the driveway. It's about fifty yards from the garage to the street so it took me a good two hours. It was only after I'd finished and was peeling off my sweaty layers that I thought, Hey, I've got freakin' congestive heart failure!
As usual, I overdid it. I drove over to Barnes & Noble for morning coffee and the New York Times but the place was closed. Most of the shops in The Summit - one of only three malls in this city - were closed. Jeez! The Starbucks was open - phew! - so I sat down and began to read. Then it hit me. A wave of exhaustion. I could hardly concentrate. My legs and arms felt like lead. I thought I might pass out.
That's what happens when a CHF sufferer goes overboard, as I did. It didn't alarm me; I knew it would pass after a few hours. I sat back and breathed deeply. Then, suddenly, I started thinking about the last year and a half.
I've gotta confess - I went through yet another of my patented, fall-off-the-face-of-the-Earth depressions last year. The realization that I'd experienced another lost six months was as jarring as if I'd recalled that I'd lost a loved one.
This kind of thing has happened to me before. Somehow, whenever I've found myself extraordinarily worn out by physical exertion, the sun,or some emotional strain, the reality of my depression floods into my consciousness. The first time it happened was way back in the fall of 1979. My little nephew Doug, 11 at the time, wanted to go downtown to see the Pope at the Petrillo Bandshell. I considered counseling him to shun the gaudily-attired leader of the world's most pompous mythology but then decided, hell, it'll be an event and I can disillusion the kid another day. So we went.
The day was unseasonably warm. Doug and I stood out in the sun for eight hours. When we got back home, we collapsed on my mother's sofa, spent and dehydrated. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed by the memories of my first real cyclical depressive episode, one that I'd just been emerging from. I'd been feeling fairly decent the last few weeks but sprawled on that sofa, the feelings of alienation, loneliness, dread, uselessness, and all the other classic symptoms washed over me. I began to sob uncontrollably. I told my mother that day that I wanted to kill myself, the first time I'd ever revealed the secret I'd been holding in throughout the just-passed episode.
I got over it, of course, only to go through the same process all over again more times than I care to recount here.
Today's realization was an epiphany. Here's what I learned: the amount of energy I expend fighting depression, running from it, arguing with it, pretending it isn't there, trying to fix it - all the strategies I employ against it - is enormous. Sure, I see shrinks, I take anti-depressants, I repeat affirmations, I seek joys and answers - I do, in short , what every depressive does to survive. But the most important thing I do each day, every day - every minute - is pretend it isn't there.
Were I to remain in constant cognizance that I carry this gray-matter burden, this six-ton anchor on my heart, this emotional Rubik's Cube, I'd never have a moment to wash my face, write a story, or, well, shovel the snow. It takes gigawatts of energy to shove the melancholia into an unused corner of my brain so I may pursue everyday life. Then, when I'm exhausted, when my energy reserves are depleted, that melancholia breaks out of its closet.
I'll be participating in a gallery show at the Lakeside Legacy Arts Park in Crystal Lake, Illinois in May. The opening reception will be on the first. The show is entitled "Snap Out Of It!" and will feature highly personal works about the artists' battle with depression. I'm doing a video piece. Keep an eye on these precincts for more info.
