All the Decembers that I have seen

The idea of the impoverished writer is a myth.   It is impossible to carry a creative thought when every cell of your mind is rattling around frantic about money worries.   It squeezes everything else out; ambition, hope, happiness.   The head bows under the weight, the body bends like a weak stem.  How can I be successful if I can’t afford to pay the bills?  How will I ever be happy if I have to live so slightly?  Exuberance is part excess.  Joy, unbridled by frugalness.  Love gifts purchased, letters written that are not just spidery scrawl of panic and sadness.

I don’t think I’ve stopped all week to even look around.  My buoyancy yesterday seemed to be a slim reprieve and it’s business as usual today.  The world has that old dull glaze; grey clouds are greyer, the ashen faces of passersby seem drawn and lifeless.  But for the past hour I have been at my desk, listening to the rain.   It’s December tomorrow, and I wonder how many more Decembers I will see.

It’s difficult to think of life as finite.  Spread out into the future, somewhere, is the point where it ends, and ends forever.  We take it for granted.  Even when I have been depressed and wanted forcefully to die, I have never regretted being born.  The hate I often have for myself is tempered by the quiet knowledge that these hands and feet are mine alone, and were made, with love, by my parents.   Maybe that sounds peculiar, but I am grateful for these years I have had, and all the Decembers that I have seen.

It’s hibernation time.  A concept almost lost on me, the girl who only sleeps because she takes a drug to sleep.  I only sleep for neccessity, not for pleasure. The world winds down, weary, and lights are anchored on windowsills to keep vigil in the darkness.   Everything is quieter, punctuated by the slush of the rain.  These seasons made me reflective.  As summer is the season of life, then winter to me is the season of death.  In the cold, people die in their homes.  I don’t typically become depressed in winter, but part of me seems inclined to be. Quietness, stillness, frightens me.  I struggle to fill every waking moment with activity, no matter how depressed I find myself.  Even in the depths, my mind races.  I have to wonder what it is that myself is so desperate to be distracted from.

December is different now, without my dad.  I wonder often if he ever sat and looked out at the rain.  If there is a mutual memory that connects us still.  I remember many Christmasses, the good and the bad.  And the nights stretched out on the sitting room floor in a pair of pyjamas and my hair in plaits, drinking tea and eating toasted toppers while my sisters and brother sat on the chair and my dad made sarcastic remarks about the television presenters.  He actually really liked Christmas.  When he and mum weren’t at war, he entered into the spirit.  Hid our presents, put out the mince pies and milk (and ate them), wore the silly hats and pulled the crackers.  So I am dreading this Christmas a little bit, because he won’t be there, and my family doesn’t feel complete anymore.

In December 2002 and 2006 I was ravingly mad; moreso in 2002, a month plagued by psychosis.  2006 was the year of panic.  I relied utterly on Seroquel to bring me an uneasy sleep.  All I could think about was death and dying.   I found it very difficult to be home, which is why I only want to stay a few days this Christmas.  I still can’t quite cope being there without my dad, it is too surreal still and it will take some years before I don’t expect to see him on the seatee in the living room.

Shame still creeps up on me, the thought that I have let him down.  I wrote a letter today for the CPN with a brief synopsis of my illness since my teens.  I was surprised at how much I had to leave out.  When I read it back, I really do understand why I am the way I am right now; it has not stopped, not for years and years.  But a part of me still protests; you are weak.  And tells me I should be so much more than a blogger on benefits.  I feel as though the past year has muted me somehow.  I wonder if I need to be, to get better, to be a quieter, carefuller person.  Still with everything I write, I want to say, “For you” but who would want such a story dedicated to them.   Maybe hibernation is good; maybe you come out brand new.

I have a dreadful headache at the moment; another symptom of the rain.  It has been relentless today, both the headache and the rain.  I wonder which will end first.