depression | Plaid Sheep

I fell in love tonight. I fell in love with a new man, his name is Finn.

I wrote about Operation Regain Sanity the other day, trying to make it as light and funny as possible but the truth is there wasn’t much light about it… there hasn’t been much light about my life lately at all.

Since Finn was born I’ve been having a really rough time. I didn’t tell anyone, partly because I’m not someone who can easily articulate when I need help and partly because I didn’t even fully realize what was happening. To say I’ve been depressed isn’t accurate, I haven’t been depressed, or sad, or angry… I haven’t been anything. I’ve been empty, going through the motions that I’m essentially programmed to do, with absolutely nothing inside me at all.

I’ve been living in an entirely beige world.

Then the other night I was holding Finn when he passed out after three or four hours of crying and I realized he was one month old. One whole month, and I hadn’t been around for any of it. He and Verona weren’t being seriously neglected, I fed them when they needed to be fed, changed their diapers, when they cried I held them… but I had done absolutely nothing beyond what I had to.

He was a month old and I didn’t know him at all, and what’s worse was I didn’t care. I wanted to cry, I wanted to be horrified by this realization and break down and be disappointed in myself, or frustrated, or anything. But I couldn’t, I felt nothing.

I had a problem.

So I started Operation Regain Sanity, hoping that if I changed the way I acted it would eventually change the way I felt. I know if I go to my doctor she’ll probably prescribe me something, and I am not opposed to that but want to try to do it on my own first.

The past couple days I’ve been making myself get off the couch where for the past month, despite physically feeling fine, I’ve spent almost all day, everyday. I’ve been getting back on the floor and playing with Verona instead of just letting her watch Baby Einstein and Fraggle Rock all day. I’ve been forcing myself to do things with other people even when I’m not socially obligated to do so. I’ve been making myself eat food… usually reasonably healthy food… even though I don’t really want to (and similarly I’ve been making food for Verona instead of just giving her toast and fruit snacks). I’ve even been showering which I didn’t realize until I thought about it but I’ve only done a handful of times in the past month.

I’m not myself yet by any means, but I’ve definitely been feeling better. Last night when Finn was crying I instinctively stood up and started rocking him… this shouldn’t be a big deal but up until now all I could bring myself to do was sit and hold him while he wailed as I stared vacantly off into space. This morning Verona told me a story and I smiled… I mean really smiled… with my eyes and everything, not just the mouth smile you do when you know you should but don’t mean it.

Then tonight I was holding him during a rare time when he was both awake and not crying. I was talking and smiling at him… something I’m sad to admit I haven’t done hardly at all in his life. And suddenly he smiled.

He smiled at me.

A little half smile, goofy as hell but a real smile. He smiled and me and right then and there I fell madly in love with him.