Cyclical Contentment

This has been such a strange week for me. I am whole and healthy and well once more. The sun is shining. My children are home and happy (actually they are out and about in parks and on walks with friends). I have finished half of my story for this semester, and I like it. We attended parent teacher conferences and found teachers we respect, admire and trust.

But somehow I feel incredibly fragile right now, a bit tremulous, as if even the smallest of surface tears will send everything unravelling. January, February, March-- they are so hard for me. As I have gotten older, I have become much better at identifying and managing periods of depression or anxiety. I no longer suffer the indescribable oppression of pre- and post-partem despair that left me flattened for much of my early twenties, or the endlessly exhausting insomnia that accompanied an undiagnosed hyperthyroidism just a few years ago. But I still go through spirals of emotional change. I am still subject to the wash and repeal of these waves. 

Post-surgery, I was given a drug that pushed until I was curled up on the end of the bed, a weeping mess with no desire to recover, because the wretched likes of me certainly did not deserve such hope. Fortunately, I know enough now to articulate that things were not alright, and I was not so hale and hearty as one might wish. So the pills were pulled, and 72 hours later it gradually dawned on me that life continued to exist and I might be interested in it after all.

So, all things considered, I am ok. Really, truly, deeply, at the most basic level, pretty gosh darn good. And what I am coming to understand is that I can feel fragile and muted and introspective. I can take the wash of grey and slip into the shadows once in a while. I can explore the darkness and feel the fear and grief and regret. And I can still be really, truly, deeply, at the most basic level altogether fabulous.

We live in a time and a society that place an enormous amount of value on "happiness." We want bright, loud, fun, glorious, exuberant joy. The constitution of this country includes the pursuit of happiness as one of its most basic tennants. And yet. I would not be who I am without the dark as well as the light. There are aspects of what others might label as depression that I find indispensable. These are often the times when I am the most reflective, the rawest: the ones that lead me to deeper insight and greater understanding. They instruct, inform and mold me, granting a capacity to feel and acknowledge, to perceive, see and appreciate to a far greater extent than I would have been able to otherwise.

Simon and I have talked about this before: would I change what I have been through to be happier, to have a more predictable and easier life. And I always say no. No, I never would. I would not want to sink back into the deep debilitating depressions. But I would not want to be left wholly devoid of darkness, either.

These days I do my best to seek contentment and peace with who and where I am. I seek insight to understand what others experience. I seek the clarity to comprehend the purpose of experience, and the ability to share this with others. I seek beauty, even in the unlikeliest of places. I seek truth. I seek personal grace so that I may treat those I love as they deserve to be treated. And I seek patience with myself and the wisdom to know how to find balance in it all. 

All of these are facets of light, penetrating, incorruptible spiritual realities that I hold in the core of my being. I slowly polish them, add to them. Sometimes I stumble and drop a few bits. When the clouds gather, they can be obscured and seep into dimness. But sometimes the dark only makes them shine more brightly. Sometimes it is the sepia wash that brings the glow and warmth of experience and the joy that can only be appreciated because it has been tempered with pain. It is only with shadows that we can see depth. So I am working hard at not being afraid of the dark. Of, in fact, accepting it. Of opening myself to this experience, of seeing what I can learn from it and how I can use it in my own life, and in how I relate to others.

Maybe "happiness" is not for me. But joy-- I can do profound joy, even from the darkest of corners.

(Lest you are wondering what prompted all of this, it is never far from the surface this time of eyar. And I am currently reading Johnson's Rasselas, which does beg the question. Also, my apologies for the lack of pretty pictures. If you have read this far, by all means have some tulips).

Comments

[Amy]

I've been thinking about this same topic during a rather down period this month. Thanks for sharing your experiences and thoughts with us; it always makes a difference to know one is not alone.

[Amanda]

I also have been gaining insight into the cycles of my emotional experience. It has been challenging to accept that this darkness is a part of who I am and not just the result of outside forces. I have made great progress with accepting all of who I am... and this has begun to lift the great weight I carried for not being 'happy' or 'strong'. Thank you for this beautiful window into your own journey.

[Kyrie]

You are singing my song, friend. I am so thankful for your comment on my post, and so utterly grateful for the thoughts you've shared here. Like you, I wouldn't trade my life for a different one. But I wish that all those years that I didn't know there was another side, a content side, had offered some hope to me.

Once I spent a lot of time worrying that my girls would be burdened with these same troubles. Now I know that if they are, I am equipped with the experience to give them strength to face it, and hope that it isn't all there is. The shadows can be looked at together.

My very great love to you. xo

[h.]

I have been following your blog for a long time, but am only just commenting now. Your explanation of your experience of darkness makes me wonder, a little, how you've seen inside my brain. Like you, there are parts of this way of experiencing the world that I find indispensable, and if it came down to making a choice, I would rather my interior life be perhaps more difficult or full of a certain kind of suffering - or what one might label suffering - than I would remove or dull this part of me that I feel brings, in its own way, a valuable richness and depth to my understanding of life. No matter how hard it is at times to accept, or to be at peace with.

At any rate, thank you for writing this, and thank you for keeping such a lovely blog. You write beautifully and I so love the way you see the world.

[Christina]

Thank-you for sharing your heart. Its do nice to know I'm not alone.
Christina

[Arianne]

Your honesty is beautiful and refreshing. I'm holding out for April here too.

[Heather]

Thank you for being so open...and for the daffodils.

[Rose]

"Let the beauty you love be what you do, there are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground..." Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi

[Tana]

A beautiful post. Even surrounded with four grown children, two grandkids, a husband, three sisters and so, so many friends, there is still a road I walk alone. I wouldn't mind walking it if it wasn't so dark. Not all of us have a dark road but hearing your story I know all those bumps in the night aren't from monsters but from others on the same road with me. Thank you.

[Su]

Just beautiful. Thanks so much for articulating so eloquently the blessings of the darkness that so many of us feel. I'm in your camp-"happiness" can be elusive and fleeting, but deeper join is attainable, even for those of us who need to dig a little deeper to find it.

Thank you. (And the tulips were lovely, too:)

[Vicki]

Oh you have no idea how your stories continue to inspire. Especially this particular one. Your words "...maybe I'm just not cut out for happiness, but joy..." Exactly what I'm beginning to accept about myself. Thank you so much for sharing. (ps. I've been reading your blog since your littles were truly little)