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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At what turned out to be one of the last churches I attended, we started what turned out to be one of the last young adult groups I attended as well. The leaders of the group, Mark and Julie Doting, were the darlings of our scene. Successful and thirtysomething–the decade of peak coolness–they seemed so together. So normal. Unlike most of the rest of our small congregation, made up mostly of the very young and very old, they weren’t poor, and didn’t seem to come from poverty, either. They lived on the good side of town, and our first meeting was held in their cheerfully decorated living room.
The problems began almost immediately. Before the attendees had even fully arranged ourselves on the miscellaneous seating options, Julie muttered to Mark, “That’s not the way to do it.” Her tone was insistent–almost offended. Her husband had arranged the guitar music on a stool instead of a music stand, and Julie wanted no part of it. Mark took the bait and a short but intense negotiation followed. Then Mark took a deep breath and opened the meeting. He prayed. Then someone else prayed. Then he suggested we all “go around the circle and introduce ourselves,” as they have in every similar meeting I’ve ever attended. But before we could do so, Julie interrupted.
“We all know each other,” she said. Was this the same Julie? Smiley Julie? Professional school administrator Julie? Did she talk to the principal that way, nagging him about the new special assembly planning procedure? I imagined it and quickly made the mental adjustment. Hmmm … Maybe that’s why she’s a school administrator.
Others in the group weren’t as quick to catch on. Most of them looked a bit confused. The meeting continued in much the same fashion till it came to a blessed end and we adjourned to the kitchen for refreshments, Julie asking Mark why he bought plastic cups.
“We always get paper.”
Pastor Pat was there that evening. Watching him, I wondered, did he suspect something like this might happen? Is that why he’d showed up? I side-glanced back to the living room and noticed the couple following him to an adjoining room for a “quick debrief.” The absence was noticed but not remarked upon. I took my muffin and plastic cup of juice back to the living room. And that’s when one of those seemingly insignificant significant thoughts came. If this is what marriage is like, I mused, I want no part of it. There was no sadness in this realization, only relief. A child of divorced parents whose friends’ parents were mostly divorced or unhappily paired, I had no firsthand data to refute my hasty conclusion. Is this what I’ve been hoping for all my life? Embarrassing public spats over insignificant matters? Is that the prize at the end of the dating rainbow? It was like eating a box of Lucky Charms hoping to find a treasure chest at the bottom, but instead just getting more Lucky Charms. What if I just stopped dating? I wondered. Would that be so bad? It might even be a relief.
Up to this time, my longest relationship had lasted less than six months. Later, I realized that I prefer women to men sexually, but at the time the possibility of being queer was as distant as the possibility of my someday having children or being happy. Giving up dating completely, though? The idea had never crossed my mind. I deeply craved romantic love and took almost every chance I got at a meaningless hookup. Why not? At least it was something. That night, though, the rubber band of desire that always pulled me back toward the sin of lust snapped. I could run from men now, unhindered. And that’s what I did. Mostly. I told myself I was waiting for God to bring my husband. Till then, I would be enough. Just me.
It was simpler.
I was very grateful to that couple, and still am.
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“Our life is frittered away by detail… simplify, simplify.” Henry David Thoreau.
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After graduating college with my hard-earned B.A. I did what most college graduates do: kept working my food service job. It had been a few years since my no-dating resolution had taken effect, and finally, someone came along and picked me. His name was Jake. Unsure about the relationship, I fled to China to teach English for a while. John fled, too, to basic training for the Army. When I returned, I found no boyfriend waiting but I did find a brick one-story house with original solid wood floors and trim on a quarter acre lot. I bought it, and with that, entered phase two of my hibernation.
This phase was better. I loved my new-old house. It was my lover, my boyfriend. Though I’d had strong feelings for a few boys, it had never felt like this. With them, it had always been about the general feeling rather than about the specific person. The way I felt about my house, though–this was the real thing. I loved this house. This one, in particular.
It was a romantic time. We’d meet after dark after my closing shift that was followed by an hour-and-half-long commute. I still remember the feeling of stepping over my property line and crossing the lawn in that quiet sort-of-suburban neighborhood. We were alone.
It was just us.
I spent all my extra money on it. Not to make it nice, but to pay it off. I spent as much time with it as I could. I was a bit obsessed. At the tail end of my college years, my social efforts had slowed almost to the point of stalling. Now, they were sputtering, as had the last car I owned before I swore off cars forever. My life was in transition. I’d outgrown my restaurant friends; I was now one of the older, more experienced people there. College was behind me, and none of my friends had stuck.
I kept things simple. I read a lot. I got a treadmill. It wasn’t enough, but it was. I’d always been a loner. But now I was a loner with a house. Home ownership isn’t the depression treatment of choice for everyone, but for me, it made a difference.
That first year, my mom brought a few of her church friends over to see my new house and pray … for it? I appreciated the gesture. They oohed and aahed appropriately. Then we stood in a circle, held hands and prayed. After everyone had taken their turn, Josephine, an intelligent woman in her seventies, asked me what kind of career I wanted now that I’d graduated. I told them I didn’t know, but that I was incredibly thankful for where I was right then. I said it again: “I am just so thankful. I have everything I need.”
To a woman, they missed a beat. Blank looks. I could read their thoughts: She’s a waitress with no boyfriend. She has everything she needs? Everything? Then, blessedly, understanding came over Josephine’s face. She saw that my gratitude wasn’t naivete. It was a choice.
“Praise God,” she said with a wide smile and shining eyes. “You have everything you need. That’s beautiful.” The other women nodded and smiled in agreement.
In hibernation, it seems like nothing is happening, but a lot is happening. The most that ever happens is happening. Somehow, without realizing it, I was growing up.
Better late than never, I suppose.
I was learning grownup things: how to be grateful for what you have. How to enjoy routine. How to take a day off. For the first time in my adult life, I had only one job and no classes. I learned that I didn’t always have to distract myself; I could be alone. Even more significantly, I learned that the ups and downs of unstable relationships were worse for my mental health than were the gentle slopes of loneliness.
I had always been a loner, and I was still a loner. And I was sick of trying to pretend otherwise.
It was the first segment of my life that I look back on and think, that was a good time. Not a fun time, maybe. But a good time.
It was a rest.
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“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.” Seneca.
“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.” Cicero.
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Inner peace is hard. Reading about it isn’t. Get The Power of Acceptance: One Year of Mindfulness and Meditation at your preferred book retailer today.
