Drive my car.

When I was sixteen, I got in a car accident.

It was late May, and I was driving a friend home from school. He lived nearby, but I’d just received my license and was flush with the heady power of being able to give people rides; the fact that his house was no more than five minutes from campus was completely irrelevant. At minute four, we crossed one of our sleepy suburban town’s wider intersections–a whopping four lanes–and were promptly struck by a Ford Explorer that made short work of my 1981 Honda Prelude. My poor car was torn completely in half by the impact; by some miracle, my friend and I emerged almost completely unscathed.

Realizing at the time, and every day since, that the outcome was nothing short of preposterous (truly, if you’d seen the state of the car, you’d realize that we had no business walking away from the event on our own legs), it will probably not surprise you that ever since then I have had a rather strong antipathy toward driving. Or rather, ever since the accident, I have had a crippling, seething hatred of being behind the wheel; why else would I hold New York’s wild, unreliable MTA in such reverence? I loathe driving. Looooaaathe it.

Which makes it all the more curious that in recent years, I have become really, really interested in cars. Not driving. Just cars.

My sister is partially to blame for this; she’s the one who introduced me to the majesty that is Top Gear UK, which has done more than anything to ignite my interest. Something about watching its three hosts careen about buffoonishly keeps me coming back again and again–and I won’t lie, their enthusiasm for anything powered by a combustion engine is quite infectious. I will, however, admit a certain bafflement when they start heralding the perfection of modern-day “supercars”–I find most of them to be abominations of design, all points and no personality. No, what really gets me going is when they start going off about classic cars.

Turns out I have a serious thing for the cars of the 1930′s and the 1960′s–those glorious days when the fenders were voluptuous and the average vehicle was at least eight hundred miles long. They had such personality, such style. I mean, just LOOK at Bugatti Type 57:

The swoops! The swirls! I described this car to M as a noir radio play in car form; I stand by that. It’s not a car you describe as “fierce,” though if it were a human it would be packing a Tommy Gun under its trench coat, and would have no problem using it on you. This car is completely gangster, in the fedoras-and-rum-running kind of way.

Then there’s this:

The AC Shelby Cobra. It’s hard to believe, but beneath that trim and perky exterior, this car is an absolute beast. Powered by a 7-Liter V8 engine, it was most famous for destroying all comers at the Riverside Racetrack in 1963–a rather shocking upset, considering it was up against a whole fleet of Porsches, Ferraris, and Corvettes (who, up to that point, were The Car To Beat). Despite my love of a good underdog story, I have to admit that I have limited interest in its personal trivia. What interests me: the curve of the bonnet, the flare of the wheel well. I want to pet this car like a spoilt siamese cat.

And then there’s this, the great American Classic: 1968 Hot Gold Convertible Ford Mustang. I have no real commentary on this car, except to say I would take up driving again if it meant I could get behind the wheel of one of these. Delicious.

I love these cars because in addition to being absolute monsters on the road (what can I say, I’m a girl who appreciates power), they are exquisitely designed–a characteristic I find sorely lacking in much of today’s automotive industry; in these pieces, the form was as carefully thought out as the function, resulting in some truly staggering cars. Ok, so, the prospect of ever piloting one of them (with the possible exception of the Mustang) fills me with a cold and wicked sense of dread–and perhaps more than a touch of panic–but that doesn’t mean I can’t dream about taking one for a spin. After all, a Ford Explorer would just bounce off that Bugatti, don’t you think?

How things change.

It turns out I have a strange relationship with happiness. Unlike most normal people, I tend to equate it to some degree with anguish–not because happiness is an inherently bad thing, but because, in my mind, it needs to be paid for. You don’t get happiness for happiness’ sake; you get to be happy because you’ve suffered for it–or you’re about to.

(I know. Not exactly a healthy opinion. My therapist and I spend a lot of quality time trying to work this particular quirk out.)

I have no idea why it is that I feel this way. I had a comfortable upbringing and have had some incredible good fortune in my life; it’s not as though I’ve had a particularly hardscrabble existence. But it’s always hard to bask in the good things, because some deep part of my lizard brain is ABSOLUTELY CONVINCED that if I appreciate what I have too much, the universe will decide it needs to teach me a lesson and take it away. I always want to play happiness close to my chest, because if I don’t ever fully allow myself to relax into it, or come to depend on it, it won’t hurt so much when it goes away. Which it will, one way or another.

Or something. Welcome to the twisted labyrinth that is my brain. Try the pie!

That said, it’s absolutely no fucking way to live. The world is difficult and happiness is a fleeting and fickle thing (or can be), which is all the more reason to celebrate those moments when they fly through your life. The mortal coil is too damn short to take them for granted. Plus, you know. Life as a professional raincloud wasn’t exactly working out so well for me. So guess what, world, I have a confession to make: I’m happy. Fuck it!  I am happy, and I don’t care how uncomfortable saying it out loud makes my brain.

I am happy because summer is coming, the sun is shining, and my neighborhood is in bloom with a riot of screaming red azaleas and fragrant lavender lilacs. I am happy because I have fallen in love, something I thought I might be structurally incapable of doing ever again. I am happy because waking up in the morning no longer seems like a pointless, painful exercise. I am happy because I have a kick-ass apartment  and even ass-kickinger friends. I am happy because I have mermaids and music and a great recipe for chocolate chip cookies. I am happy because I have health insurance and a job I like doing work I love. I am happy because pineapples and whiskey exist, and that internet cat videos are more accessible than ever. I am happy because I feel better than I have in…well, years, to be honest. I am happy, and I am thankful.

And you know what? I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts, whether that’s two more minutes or two more decades, because that’s kind of the point of being alive. And now that I’ve decided that alive is something I really want to continue to be, I’m going to do it up right–and that includes allowing myself to feel good about things from time to time.

Suck on that, lizard brain.

Rock music and not having feelings.

Every now and then, I make the terrible mistake of actually thinking–really thinking–about the Internet. It’s not unlike those similarly misguided moments wherein I stop to think about the physical mechanics of speech; in either situation, I rapidly disintegrate into little more than vowel sounds and a killer thousand-yard stare. But, you know, think about it. Something about the fact that nearly ALL THE INFORMATION you could ever reasonably want is lurking out there in the ether, waiting for a few quick keystrokes to come and sate your curiosity. Want to know about recreational beekeeping? There’s a website for that! Want to know more about the biological advantages of having a disposable penis? The Internet is here for you! Need 5000 personalized sand dollars, STAT? No problem! And then there are the cat videos. Don’t even get me started on the cat videos.

And the best part? You don’t have to talk to anyone to get this information. You don’t even have to put on pants!

If you stop to think about it, it’s truly mind-boggling. We carry around–literally, in our pockets–a giant, intangible hive mind, where there are answers to almost everything. Including what it’s like to live with and treat depression, as chronicled here, brilliantly, by Allie at Hyperbole and a Half. (Please go read that now. I’ll wait.)

As most of you who read this website know, I had a bit of a rough time there at the end of last year. I was, in many ways, extremely fortunate, in that I had the incredible and unwavering support of my friends and family–a small army of people who bent over backwards to take exquisite care of me at a time when I could barely figure out how to feed myself or wake up in the morning–and good health insurance that allowed me to continue seeking the treatment I needed in order to keep recovering. I was lucky. But you know what? Even as I started to feel better, it still fucking sucked. It sucked because even after I stopped wishing I were dead, I didn’t know how to live with depression.

Living with depression is different than suffering from depression; to suffer from depression doesn’t require ever getting off your couch or taking a shower. Living with depression means figuring out how to navigate getting out of bed those mornings when you just can’t see the point. It means combing your hair and getting out into the world, even on those days when you would give your eyeteeth to just hide under the bed. Living with depression means figuring out what to do on those days when the yawning chasm in your chest decides to dilate a bit more than usual, threatening to pull you down into the void again. It means continually finding ways to keep moving forward–and sometimes you just run out of ideas. Fortunately for those of us living in the twenty first century, the Internet is chock-full of ideas. Sometimes those ideas involve an entire page of cat gifs, but ideas they remain.

At the beginning of my recovery, I spent a lot of time on the Internet–I needed to know that there were people out there going through what I was going through. I needed to know that I wasn’t alone, and that I wasn’t crazy. I didn’t understand what was happening to me, or what I could do about it. I needed to hear the stories of people who understood, people who knew firsthand that this monster living in our brains is not something we can quantify or justify; it’s not even something we can explain most of the time. It’s just there, ready to destroy everything if we give it even the slightest opportunity. I needed to be reminded that I am not to blame for its existence, and that it is possible for me to keep it at bay. I needed all these things, but at the time I wasn’t comfortable talking to my nearest and dearest about it. And so, like any good product of the 21st century, I asked the Internet.

And you know what? The Internet came through. Somewhere in between the LOLCats and the Rick Astley videos, I found a goodly chunk of what I was seeking. I found lots of like-minded people going through experiences similar to mine; I found lots of good advice about how to cope with the monster on a daily basis, and the answers to a lot of questions I wasn’t ready to ask people face to face. I found tons of information about my doctors and my medications–the latter of which was invaluable as I found myself suffering through the SSRI crazies–and some very helpful information about how to make the most of my treatment. I found some great cathartic music and a lot of recipes to obsessively bake. I found out that there are a lot of people who care about me, more than I’d realized. I also found a lot of information about Sailor Moon, Mr. T and the construction of origami bells, which helped keep the monster occupied while I got on with things. With a few Google searches and a couple very chatty forums, I found the tools I needed to keep on going, all from the safety of my living room. I DIDN’T EVEN HAVE TO PUT ON PANTS.

And that, my friends, is (tangentially) why thinking too hard about the Internet makes my brain break: it has absolutely everything if you just look hard enough. Education. Music. Friends. Support. Significant others. Canning tutorials. Porn. A comprehensive history of jazz. Every issue of Spin magazine from the 90′s. It’s there, it’s all there, and people are offering up more and more every day. Someone, somewhere is also thinking about whatever it is you’d like to know, no matter how esoteric and/or absurd, and they’re willing to share. The wealth of the world’s knowledge is at our fingertips. And that is amazing. It’s almost too much for me to bear.

Plus, you know. All the free origami tutorials you could ever want! What’s not exciting about that?

We think…

Get up. Take a shower. Shave your legs. Put on your face. Do something about that hair. Go get your nails done. Do something for yourself. Go out and see people. Pick up your guitar, you know that always helps. Dance. Go to work. Go to the movies. Put on some lipstick. Spend time with your friends. Bake something.

Get out there and be you. Right now you may not think you’re wonderful, but we do. We think you’re wonderful, and we hate seeing you be so hard on yourself.

We think you’re wonderful, and we want you back.

Call the exorcist.

Here’s something that gets downplayed when you start taking antidepressants: during the first week or two, you will go crazy. Completely fucking batshit, hide-the-knives-and-call-the-doctor crazy. Cray.

If your experience is like mine, you will feel like you’ve been possessed. You will lie awake nights thinking about how much you hate yourself, how you wouldn’t want to be around you either. You will stop sleeping. You will cry, for days. Entire days. Usually curled up in a ball under your kitchen table, rocking back and forth. You won’t be able to eat for a while. You will not be able to fathom feeling better, ever. You will wish you were dead.

Abstractly, you will know that none of these feelings are real, that this is a strange thing that is happening to you, like getting lost in a haunted house. You will be sort of aware that you are just being bullied by your brain; you will get very weirded out by the notion that you and your brain are suddenly separate entities sharing a single body.

Totally weirded out.

You will call people just so you have company while you keen like a wounded animal, for hours. In doing so, you will scare two of your nearest and dearest so badly that they decide to pile in a car to take you back to your devastated former city, because it is apparent that you have no capacity left to take care of yourself and are perhaps a danger to yourself and others. No, seriously.

I’m told that this mania is a sign that the medicine is starting to work, that this is the way brains react to having their chemical balance (or lack thereof) messed with. From the inside, the only way I can describe it is that it feels like the final scene in any movie with an exorcism in it–I feel like there is a demon being forcibly ejected from my brain, and it is putting up one hell of a fight.

I worry that I’m not strong enough to win.

Baby steps.

Appropriately enough, I had a massive panic attack right before I left for my doctor’s appointment the other day.

It was severe enough that by the time I arrived at my doctor’s office (5 blocks away), my knees were weak, my hands were convulsing, my heart was racing and I couldn’t actually formulate thoughts. Despite all this, I managed to keep it together long enough to register with my new physician–barely. Once I got called to the exam room, it took me less than two minutes to burst into hysterical, racking sobs. I think I alarmed the woman taking my vitals; I guess people don’t usually react so strongly to the pulse meter.

My doctor, however, was cool as a cucumber, even when I told her that the reason I was there was (and I quote): “I think I’m losing my mind.” To her eternal credit, she didn’t laugh me out of her office (though I did get a distinct side-eye from her when I told her just how long I’d been feeling these symptoms*, and how long it had taken me to finally seek treatment), and after a very long and frequently embarrassing conversation, it’s official: I have been diagnosed with severe depression.

This is good news, for two reasons:

  1. Getting a diagnosis means that there is actually something wrong with my wiring–it’s not just me getting high on my own drama.
  2. The fact that it is A Thing means that there are treatment options.

There are treatment options. Which means that there is a very real possibility that someday, SOMEDAY, I might stop feeling this way. Someday, I might start feeling better. 

I don’t even remember what better feels like right now.

I walked out of her office with a long list of prescriptions, an order to see a small army of mental health professionals, and, for the first time in about a year, the tiniest glimmer of hope.

This, of course, does not change the fact that right now, all I want to do is curl up in a ball under the kitchen table and cry endlessly (hello, Friday afternoon), or perhaps lock myself in my bedroom with a bottle of whiskey and never come out; it doesn’t change the fact that I would give just about anything to never have to be alone in a room with my brain again. But, when life is reduced to surviving each 12-hour period without hurting yourself, even the slimmest prospect of relief is a little bit of a miracle.

* Intermittently for most of my life; acutely for the last year; unbearably for the last few months, for those of you playing along at home.

This feeling, it has a name.

It comes on slowly. It always does.

It starts when you realize just how tired you’ve been lately, and how frustrating it is that you can never sleep. You discover, to your intense surprise, that you’ve gone months without touching your guitar, or singing for the pure pleasure of it, or speaking at all when it wasn’t absolutely necessary. You find yourself watching more TV and reading fewer books, watching the same things over and over again.

You bake a lot, but don’t eat any of it. You drink more than you used to. You drink alone.

You start avoiding your friends, and you push your significant other away until s/he can’t remember why s/he loved you in the first place (or that’s what you tell yourself). You decide you didn’t really deserve that love anyway, and you probably never will. And it just seems to unfair to ask someone like that to waste another second loving something like you. You stop returning your family’s phone calls.

You lose all faith in your ability to do anything right, ever. You second guess yourself constantly, which makes it virtually impossible to accomplish anything at all.

You find yourself crying a lot (everything sets you off), until the day you realize that a good hysterical sob no longer loosens the pressure in your chest. So you switch to being angry, for a while. And then you stop feeling much of anything at all, because feeling is exhausting and painful and who cares anyway.

You find that you can’t concentrate on anything.

You realize it’s been almost a year since you’ve described yourself as “happy,” despite the fact that when you look at it objectively, your life is pretty amazing. This intensifies your feelings of inadequacy and guilt.

And, I mean, whatever. It’s cool, it’s fine, this has happened before. It happens a lot, always has. But you’re stubborn, and you’re tough, and you’ve always been able to pull yourself out of it eventually. You’ve always managed to turn the lights back on. No problem.

But then one day you find yourself telling someone that it’s not that you wish you were dead, exactly, but maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if you could just stop existing.

You hear these words coming out of your mouth like they’re being said by someone else; to your incredible surprise, you find them to be true. You realize you believe them with everything that remains of your tired, tired heart.

If you’re lucky, this revelation scares you enough that you finally decide to ask for help.

And that is why I have an appointment with my doctor on Thursday.

Things I have learned from taking up painting.

  1. Nothing is ever going to turn out quite the way you expect it to.
  2. Mistakes are ok. They lead us to unexpectedly wonderful things.
  3. When you realize something is not going the way you want it to, try a totally new tactic–you will surprise yourself when you let yourself stray from the result you’ve envisioned.
  4. Be brave. You can fix it later. 
  5. And if you can’t, you can always start over. That’s ok, too.
  6. There are three constants: You will learn. You will change. You will grow. 
  7. Improvisation is the key to progress.
  8. Don’t be afraid of color.
  9. Don’t be afraid of Doing It Wrong.
  10. Don’t stop.

Chronically behind the times.

Oh, hey! What are you doing here?

You want to–oh, you want me to write something? You…oh, yes, I suppose I have been a little remiss, haven’t I? It’s just…well…I’ve been kind of busy. Yeah, I know. I know!

Truly, though, I apologize for the tumbleweed mosaic that has taken up residence around these parts. It’s just that I have been, truly, very busy! In the last two weeks, I’ve visited four countries, gotten food poisoning, squared off with some budget airlines, sightseen like a fucking BOSS, and basically just worn myself down into the ground. When blessed with real live downtime, I’ve found myself disinclined to do anything that requires actual effort.

But, as I know that there are a few of you actually interested in this craziness, I’m going to try and get you caught up.

Stay tuned!

 

Northbound

It’s hot here in Rome. Blisteringly, blindingly hot. So hot that I am actually excited about the prospect of the cool weather and rain that await me in my next port of call, Berlin (of course, that might also have something to do with the fact that there’s someone in Berlin I’m amped to see, but let us not discount the impact of the weather). Although, if I’m being honest, the weather isn’t the only reason I’m looking forward to leaving Rome.

It pains me to say it, but I didn’t enjoy my time here as much as I wanted to. Yes, the food was wonderful, the sights overwhelming and beyond compare, my hostess is beyond wonderful, and the energy (and, let’s face it, the traffic) unlike any other place I’ve been…but it didn’t enrapture me the way I hoped it would. And this is due, largely, to the men. Not all Roman men, of course;  from what I can see, most of them are (by and large) friendly and harmless. However, I’ve had a few unpleasant encounters here that have left enough of an impression on my to sour my perspective on this town.

First, there was the incident in Borghese park: it was early morning, I was minding my own business, and some guy decided to ignore the fifty empty benches in the surrounding area, sit right next to me, and start masturbating. It was…distinctly disturbing. Not threatening, exactly, but it made me feel…sullied. I don’t really know how else to explain it. Something about being an unwilling participant in someone else’s sex life just doesn’t sit well.

Second, there was my encounter at the Roman Forum. I was approached by an older gentleman who insisted on squiring me around the Forum and the surrounding environs. After clocking that there was no way I was going to be able to get rid of him without being unforgivably rude (and, as a woman traveling alone, being unforgivably rude always strikes me as a potentially dangerous game), I resigned myself to my fate, kept us in heavily populated areas, and counted down the seconds until I could escape. When the time finally came, he asked me for the following, with increasing levels of intensity: the address of my apartment. The location of my apartment. My closest Metro stop. My phone number. My mailing address in the states. My email address. I ended up giving him a fake email address, one of the many I keep for just such an occasion, just to buy myself an exit.

An aside, before I continue: I’m sure that plenty of you are asking why I gave him anything at all, why I didn’t just walk away. Here’s the thing: if someone is getting that aggro about getting your contact information (ESPECIALLY if you are alone, as I am), the smart thing is to give them *something*. Anything. It’s what fake phone numbers were made for. Because if you don’t, it’s not unreasonable to think that they are going to do something stupid and dangerous. Example: the last time a man got that aggressive about getting my contact info, and I refused to give any, he threw me into a wall, called me a cocktease, and tried to stick his hand up my skirt. He left with a parting gift of five bleeding claw marks on his face.

By the time I woke up the next morning, there were three messages in the fake email’s inbox, propositioning me, each more emphatic than the last. The last finished up with “DO YOU NOT WANT ME?!!!” and a promise that he would be waiting for me near Piazza Barbarini–the Metro stop I mentioned in passing during our trek. I, obviously, did not respond. I did, however, want to curl up in the fetal position and hide under the bed. The possibility (however remote) of running into him again on my travels was just too much to bear.

And that, THAT, my friends, is what makes me fucking insane about the whole business. It’s not that these people are sick and uncouth; it’s that their behavior makes me feel like my license to exist in three dimensions has been revoked. Because, unfortunately, despite the fact that such disgusting behavior is not my fault (and I swear to the highest of heavens if anyone insinuates that I somehow did something to invite this behavior, I will reach through the internet and cause some damage; I will not tolerate victim blaming), it IS my problem. Because there are always going to be assholes who think that because I am a woman, an unmarried woman, a woman who enjoys her beauty and independence and freedom, that I am inviting this attention. That, somehow, it is my fault. Not theirs. My fault, and my job to adapt my life accordingly so that these things don’t happen.

And it’s bullshit.

It is not my responsibility to change the way I dress (and before you ask, I am in the most Catholic city in all of Europe; do you honestly think I would be dressing provocatively?), or where I go, or how I interact with my surroundings. It is THEIR job to keep their peckers in their pants and stop harassing me, and countless other women. I am not going to stop wearing dresses. I’m not going to stop wearing lipstick and heels. I’m not going to stop roaming around in public spaces by myself. I am a full-grown woman of the twenty first century and it is NOT MY JOB to make excuses for men who wish to intimidate me. And it should not be my job to be afraid.

It’s a goddamn brave new world, even in the city that invented western history.

Get it together, men of Rome. Gentlemen of Berlin, I’m expecting better from you.

Don’t let me down.