The Ache

At this point, the ache is familiar. Too familiar.


The ache takes too many liberties, makes itself too comfortable and threatens to ruin a day, a week, a month of my life.


And then the ache leaves. Packs its bags and pulls away from the curb and leaves us all here dumbfounded.


I've had a revelation. I had only considered my own insufferable ache in so much that it bothered other people, it bothered me, and it could (theoretically) be stifled by this or that.


This or that being any combination of medicine or counseling.


But everybody has an ache and not everybody resorts to finding the source of it at the core of their being.


My two year old aches.


He aches when we've spent the whole weekend holed up in the hole of a house watching Netflix. He aches when I bring him home and plop him in front of the tv to spend some time with his second babysitter of the day while I make a mediocre dinner of which I'm not proud. That meal doesn't matter much to him, he'll eat cheese and an apple again, but I'll feel the insufferable ache of failing something simple like dinner and he'll feel the ache of mama being in the kitchen while Curious George watches him and makes sure he doesn't do something curious.


My older children ache for fresh air and conversation. They ache and don't know it. One day I'm afraid they'll look back at these years as the 'tablet years', when they were consumed by screen time and the people on Youtube were their only friends.


And I've settled in with this ache, made it comfy and amenable. It's okay for mama to be disenchanted with everything and it's supposed to be magical when you figure out what makes your mom happy. It's supposed to go like this: Friday night, mama lets her hair down, puts on her pajamas after work and sits on the couch with us. For once she demands we watch what she wants to watch and she appears to genuinely enjoy it. And we do too. We enjoy it because she enjoys it and we enjoy our time with her.


...


And in that brief moment(s), there's a comfort that is natural and breathable.


But it's retracted before it's fully savored. Drawn back into a hardness, a quiet anger, and the dissatisfied line of a soft mouth. The ache is back.


I wish that I could make a difference. Like, sit on a ball at my desk instead of a chair. Wear crocs instead of flip-flops. Eat like I should.


I wish I could save enough money not to worry. I wish I could budget so that there's money for gas when the time comes and I don't find that I've spent the last $10 on a dinner box from McDonalds.


You feel the ache too. I know you do. But, why don't we talk about it? Why is there no one to talk to anymore? I stand by the water cooler, but no one is there making jokes about Borat. Everyone is behind closed doors and looking at Facebook. I sit at the kitchen table, but no one is sitting there looking at a book or eating a snack. Everyone is plugged into something and ignoring real life.


I wish I could make a difference. Like, determine tv watching hours at home and chore charts and reward systems. Make my children set the table. Have reading time before bed. Do yoga?


...


The ache is a constant sense of fear, a sense of longing. It's sour and smells a little. It's just warm enough to be uncomfortable to the touch and just humid enough to make me sweat. (The ache sounds like a yeast infection.)


Sometimes I still laugh. Sometimes I still look at the world and feel a sense of wonder and gratitude. Enough to not be lost, trailing off after the ache when it comes. But the dissatisfied line of a soft mouth returns and I have to pick up my lip so as not to trip on it once again.


Just as I always have done.


When you identify with something like Depression, you find a way allow it to permeate the core of your being. This is my fault. I was born like this. I am destined for a life of seeking respite, seeking care, seeking help and never actually finding it. When the ache comes a knockin', I just open the door.


No, the ache has a key. And welcome or not, a place to sleep, eat, and bathe itself.


I came back here (it's been two years since I lingered on this blog) for a place to write it down. While I do feel better about having expressed something, there's a nagging feeling at the back of my brain letting me know I've not progressed beyond the confines of what depression is trying to do to me. There's no trigger for this to be happening. Nothing is wrong. The dust has kicked up a little here recently, but nothing major. That last pap smear was normal. He didn't lose his job. We sold the car. Leftovers for lunch wasn't bad. I simply cannot escape it even though I know I'm not justified in any way to be feeling like a sad sack of shit.


I wish I could take her, kicking and screaming though she may be, and push her up on the precipice, make her look out on it all and pull her hair back and slither into her ear and take over her brain. WAKE UP! TELL THAT 'ACHE' TO EAT SHIT AND DIE! WE NEED YOU. THEY NEED YOU.


When being complacent and cold is your answer to being scared shitless, you've gone woefully wrong. You've chosen the wrong path, my dear. That path's been traveled many times and it's easy and it's not scary - and your heart is scratching at the confines of the ache and is seething in deprivation because it's a warm heart, an electric heart, a living, beating, breathing thing and you've squandered it. You've let the ache win again, but you've lied and said you had it under control.


Because boring looks safer than living with what you dreamed of.