This is an excerpt from a memoir I’m currently writing, Thirty Cures in Thirty Years: A Depression Survival Story. It is a lighthearted book about the heavy work of mental health. For updates and availability info, subscribe to the right.
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On November 25, 2012, a year to the day after giving birth to Jane, my son Xavier was born. This was a challenge unlike any I’d ever known, and yet, I felt mostly ready for it. I wasn’t one of those moms that leaves the hospital with her child wondering how she’d manage this delicate, dependent new creature. Though I was exhausted, I was also serene, and bursting with oxytocin.
I was, on the whole, pretty confident.
Until.
Xavier was not what one would call a happy baby. When not in motion and/or being held, preferably by me, he cried incessantly. This is what people mean when they say they can’t take a shower: they mean that their child screams on the blanket on the hard floor next to you as you frantically try to clean up.
After giving birth, my walking mileage doubled, then tripled. The walks weren’t quite epic, but they were frequent. Our first took place the day after I returned from the hospital, Xavier in a structured baby front pack, head propped up against a small, light blanket.
Walking had been part of my overall mental health strategy for years, but after having kids, it wasn’t just a healthy practice–it was a lifeline. Sleep deprived from waking every forty-five minutes to nurse my fussy baby back to sleep, emotionally exhausted from the relentlessness of parenting, walking was the mental and physical uplift I relied on.
Until it didn’t work anymore.
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It was summer in a hot-summer town when I took my first non-compulsory, just-for-exercise walk. I believe I was twenty-one years old. I remember that summer as dark. Depression and loneliness had contributed significantly to the formation of a soft layer of extra thickness all over my body. The route I took that morning was flat. It took me a bit past the edge of my college campus–was it a mile long in total, even? A bit more? Halfway through, at the furthest point across a small man-made lake from my apartment, I thought, “This is what exercise is? This sucks.” Deflated, I returned home. Dread set in as I thought about the many morning walks to come. Still, I vowed to continue, odiousness be damned. Later that day, I noticed something interesting: I felt kinda good.
The next day, I walked again. And the next, and the next. And as Dan Savage promised a decade later about a completely unrelated struggle, It Got Better. My walks got longer. I ventured beyond the campus, crossing the river to the city trail leading downtown. I walked part of the way there, then the whole way, before turning back. Eventually, I made it through most of the main downtown park, crossing the river on the furthest bridge and circling back to campus. I told myself I was lucky: a beautiful walk, so close to home. Once in a while, I walked not for exercise, but for transportation, leaving my ugly little Dodge Colt at home. This was a different kind of walk–not the walk of the semi-fit body, but the walk of the semi-refined mind. I wasn’t just another mediocre English major; now, I was an adventurer, an artist.
I had character.
Later, I got rid of my last in a series of clunker cars and walking became a way of life.
Several decades passed. I now had an extra-fussy child–one who needed motion to fall asleep. I didn’t mind this terribly–the hours of walking I did each day filled at least some of my long winter days. Napping soundly was one benefit of my walks with the baby, and so was my improved mental health.
One dark winter evening, I pushed Xavier in his stroller, deciding which route to take. We’d already taken two hour-plus-long walks that day, but at dinner I’d argued with Benjamin about his lack of support around the house. He stubbornly insisted that his contributions were sufficient. The conversation went in circles, and that evening I wasn’t just frustrated and sleep deprived–I was depressed. Walking had been my go-to depression reliever since the baby was born. Not knowing what else to do, I set out again.
It would be my third hour-plus-long walk of the day.
I chose my route carefully: mostly well-lit. A park with a decent path for the stroller. I needed relief. To my dismay, though, relief didn’t come. I pushed the stroller harder, walked faster. Faster again. I circled the path over and over. The half-hour mark passed, then another, then a third.
I wonder if my body has adjusted to my higher level of activity, I thought. Will I have to exercise even more than I already have been to get the same high?
The thought concerned me. I’m already walking for hours most days.
I didn’t need to shock my system with cold water or hours of exercise. I needed to cry or talk with a good friend. I needed to try to resolve the problems in my marriage and sleep more and get some good child care. I needed a lot of things, none of which felt possible to obtain. I felt utterly stuck, and yet, it was a familiar feeling.
Exercise isn’t enough anymore, I realized. But what else could I do? What would work better? I had a career I liked. I loved being a mom. I had a partner that I mostly got along with, financial security and exercise. What else could I do?
I didn’t know.
I went to bed that night with that hopeless feeling that feels so true at the time, but when I awoke the next day, it wasn’t there. It never was.
I’ll figure something out, I knew.
Exercise had failed me. Or had it? Maybe it hadn’t failed me.
Maybe it just wasn’t everything I needed.
I didn’t know what my next depression cure would be. I didn’t even know if there was one.
But I did know I wouldn’t stop searching.
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“The world breaks everyone and afterwards many are strong in the broken places. But those it will not break it kills.” Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms.
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It’s Zen, only more practical. Get The Naked House: Five Principles for a More Peaceful Home at your preferred book retailer today.
