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Darkness is in the air. Maybe it’s the undeniable chill of autumn creeping into summer’s shadow. Perhaps it’s due to election season, with its attendant pestilence of emails and posts everyday alerting me to the imminent collapse of the world as I prefer it. Or maybe it’s because I’ve been watching episodes of Grimm every night this week, the first season finally being released on Netflix.
But I can’t really blame monsters, real or imaginary, for this thing called depression. I’ve lived in close quarters with it most of my life.
The Epitome of Still, with Dog Snout for visual interest
After spending last winter getting down with my sad self, I seem to have reached a sort of equilibrium and only occasionally find myself circling the Drain of Despair. However, I do edge near the whirlpool every once in awhile, and recently, while staring in sagging disbelief at my current self-imposed project, a 600 page rewrite of a manuscript from hell, I thought about something a writer friend and I recently discussed; if we didn’t suffer from this affliction, if we had an abundance of energy, or even a normal amount, how much more work could we get done? Would I be cranking out 600 pagers every six months?
The obvious answer, the noggin tap from God, is no. Because I wouldn’t be me. I wouldn’t be writing that book, or this blog. I’d be out there in the sunshine . . . doing stuff with the other normals.
These thoughts lead me back through the mists of time to a job interview I had years ago, with a manufacturer of yurts. Yes, yurts. When I went back for a second interview, the prospective employer peered intently at me, and said that although he was impressed with my resume, he was really looking for someone more . . . effervescent.
I love fancy words. Effing-escent isn’t one of them.
Never, not once in my life, has anyone referred to me as “bubbly”, because that’s what effervescent means, as well as gaseous. Or did he mean the other type of effervescent? Giddy, sparkly, chirpy, perky, bouncy? I say, if he wanted to hire a flatulent Barbie doll, he should have advertised for one, not a bookkeeper.
But what about the definitions I’m ignoring? Like vivacious. Ah, sorry, nope. I once edged close to vibrant when I was in France. Enthusiastic? Oh, yes. Now there’s a word I can get my teeth into. To be possessed by a god. I have been possessed by a god of creativity, dreams, playfulness. By a god of oceans, forests, streams. Never by a god of yurt-selling or a god of counting other people’s money.
The antonyms of effervescent are flat, still, depressed. I already copped to depressed. I can groove on still. I am a still, quiet person, a person who speaks to the page. A person who keeps the company of books, both numerical and literary. If you meet someone who walks in and “lights up a room”, it’s not me.
It has taken me a long time to accept this about myself. I will never be fizzy, no matter how much I try or how much the world out there seems to demand it. And when I stop trying, and settle into my flat, still self, then, amazingly, I am enthused. Funny how that works.
Nutshells & Mosquito Wings 
You made me laugh out loud while reading your blog about depression and I beg to differ on one point. I have seen you light up a room when you walk in and it is every time you start to read those words you put on blank pages.
Thank you. I swear I didn’t write this blog trolling for complimentary disagreements, but I appreciate them anyway.
Ah, I seem to remember that conversation! Unless you had the same conversation with two different people–or am I imagining that we had that conversation? Hmm…In any case, your last paragraph hits home. I gotta try not-trying more often. 🙂
Also, I concur with our southern-gothic buddy, meco6: You light up the room for those of us who know you.
Yup, that was you and me, waxing depressive. Actually it’s a great help to be able to talk to friends who get it. Thank you!
Everything about this piece is stunning…I looked closely at the photo last and that wrapped it all up (the humor, authenticity, critique-of-critics, self-honoring) for me regarding the creator of this piece.
Dog snout, indeed.
I want to share this with everyone who loves me…those who like the fizzy side of me and those who honor the still one. (I prefer the latter.)
If you do NaNoWriMo this year, I’d like to be a buddy if possible.
With support for your excellence,
Carrie
Thanks, Carrie. So you can tell I’m a NaNo-addict? I’ve written 50K words or more every November for the past seven years. We should hook up. The more the merrier!
I began to make peace with the world and not complain so much when I accepted myself. I think I grew up a little late, but at least I did it. It seems that you too have accepted yourself for what you are. I don’t know if this will help at all, but a statistical run of some kind showed that people who are depressed are by and large more so-called realistic than any other group. How about that for facts? It means you aren’t just leaning on other people for your grooves, the way some people like to suggest, but that you know something they don’t. Yet the times when you are the most “enthusiastic,” to use your word, are still realistic times: after all, who should know better than one of the most realistic people on the planet (yeah, I know, statistics aren’t ideal allies, but still, to think that they say just the opposite of what many people apparently think!). Have a great day!
Self-acceptance is an ongoing process, but it certainly makes life more enjoyable than self-resistance. Thanks for stopping by!
effing-awesome
I love this! It does seem to be so true that when we stop fighting with ourselves, amazing little things happen. You’d think it would be easier to just do it..but for me at least, it is such an ongoing challenging process that goes in and out of feeling impossible.
This is such a great way of illustrating it. I’m going to try and think of your yurt interview the next time part of me is trying to make another part of me something it’s not. 🙂