I Let Depression Live

Ben and I would sit here first thing in the morning, leaning into each other, shoulder to shoulder. In his absence, my backbone withers. I shrivel, half on half off the couch. Leaden air shoves me toward the floor, as though the sofa is as gone as he is. I cover my face because sunlight is a lie. My eyes can’t cry, and my legs foget how to walk.

The therapist recommends an antidepressant for a few months to calm down my emotions while the grief is most intense. She doesn’t want to flatten my feelings, she just wants me to function. So depression won’t fling me from wailing to okay to who the fuck knows what’s next.

Nurse Practitioner puts me on antidepressant #1. I crash on the couch, a zombie for most of the day. My legs remember how to walk, but they forget where they want to go. Give it a second chance. The next day, and a third chance after that. I can’t write, which is not a great result for an antidepressant, since writing gifts me endorphins. Nurse Pratitioner tries a-d #2. This one, she says will give you energy. She instructs me to take it at night, because it takes a few hours to kick in. It kicks in at 1am. I’m awake till four, sleep till six, and dream of rabid dogs chasing me. On the second night, I take it a little later. Wake up at two, awake till five. Zombie. I give it three days. And tell Nurse Practitioner, I’m through with the chemical experiment.

I’ve had enough death. I’ll let depression live.

The professionals want me to get better.

There’s a chasm between their better and mine. Grief depression is piled on top of an every effing day anxiety about getting pulled over. And will I make it through without bearing witness to another car curbside, driver’s hands spread on the roof? Piled on top of chronic depression that’s piled on top of PTSD from growing up in the house I grew up in, that’s piled on top of intrauterin depression—Mama’s chemicals flooding my tiny self, directing my future before my present begins. Piled on top of Double Great Grandma Evans’s fear of learning her letters, because it conjured up her enslaved childhood. My better will make it safe for Grandma Evans to read and write.

I take a pilgrimage all the way down to melancholy’s magma chamber and sit in its fire.

I putter in the yard; depression stands no chance against the satisfaction of pulling weeds. But everything is ever-changing, especially satisfaction. Inside, I’m lost again. I take a shower, let the rushing water prove its transformative power. I eat my favorite lunch, salmon and sweet potao, but hopelessness robs them of taste. I write; I feel good when I write. Writing is transitory, too, and misery knocks at the door of my guest house. When I welcome it in, it shows me who’s in charge up in here.

Then, I remember music. Yesterday, Yo-Yo Ma wept my heartache, so I didn’t have to. Today, Paul Simon takes me to Graceland, where I never wanted to go. But Ladysmith dances joy into my bones. I dance all over the dining room. I try to sing along. It’s laughable. And so I laugh. I have arrived at the land of grace. I search YouTube for more. Chaka Kahn sways modestly under her basketball fro—I’m every woman, never solo on this pilgrimage.

As every woman and I climb the stairs to find a book for the evening, depression slams me to my knees. I grab the rail. I gasp. And then I’m howling at the scene memory tortures me with. I was standing on one side of a bathroom door where my third grade child hid from me. I kicked, screamed, threatened, and pounded till the door fought against its hinges. On the other side, my child was deathly quiet. Today, I fall onto the stairs, screaming as loudly in shame, as I had thirty years ago in rage. I crawl the rest of the way upstairs, collapse onto the bed until breath returns. The memory returns to the mystery that birthed it. The moment my body settles, this moment leaves me awestruck.

Hanif Abdurraqib eases the way into day’s end.

As I I brush my teeth, I only brush my teeth; neither past nor future displaces the vibration of the brush. I split an Ambien in half and cozy up with Ben’s old Teddy bear. The evening routine ends with metta. After may all beings come to awakening, not one left behind, I am startled by my voice rising from the magma chamber, “This was a good day.”