Peek-a-boo Depression

                For visual thinkers

I had a fairly normal day today. Except that I had a mood-equivalent of a heart-attack. An addict’s crash after a magnificent high. The bottom dropping out of my fairly typical so-so day.
The turning point was so drastic and unexpected that as it was happening I imagined that a graph hooked up to my emotions flat-lined and beeped urgently at someone off screen.

In a normal day, a person’s mood oscillates naturally between highs (free coffee) and lows (spilling free coffee on jeans).
On a good day, a person’s mood might only oscillate between excellent, fan-fricken-tastic, and great.
On a bad day, a person’s mood oscillates between Meh, Ugh, and FUCK EVERYONE’S FAVORITE COLOR.

Sometimes these days start out with an assigned mood and nothing really budges it; but on certain days you never see the mood-changer coming.

A surprise visit from family that lives out of country.
Passing a test you thought was a lost cause.
Breaking your foot and ending your soccer season.
Lost pet.
Total your car.
Eat a really good bagel.

In my case, I thought my fantasy had finally come true.
A few seconds later, that fantasy was torn down, spat upon, and used as toilet paper.

In order to cope with my minor-late-afternoon trauma, I made this graph in microsoft paint:

         the background

My parents divorced when I was 12 (nine years ago). It was a model for nasty back stabbing, emotional cheese grating divorces. For both my parents and me and my sister.
Both my parents’ parents have had similarly nasty divorces.
My parents do not speak. None of my grandparents speak to their exes.
My grandfather does not speak to his daughter (my mother’s sister) for a reason only he knows.
My father has forbid his mother to speak to my mother.
My mother’s father no longer speaks to my father (although this may be the only legitimate silent-treatment from my perspective. My father is clueless on the matter.)

If I drew a family tree it would be thin, sick, bare, and with most of its branches broken and swinging in the wind.

We are small. We are stubborn. We are dying out.

It’s every child of divorce’s fantasy to see their parents get back together, no matter how horrible or inconceivable this might be. I like to think I’m too old to have entertained that fantasy in any seriousness. But all hope is not lost to see other branches of my family reconcile.

So when I thought that my mother and my father’s mother (Lola) might start speaking again, repairing that relationship, I was hopeful.
Nay, exuberant. I was drunk on elation.

In my typical fashion (my father would say "emotionally constipated") I downplayed to myself how important this was. I wanted it to happen, sure, but I wasn’t going to cut myself it fell apart.

         Ninja sadness.

And then my mother called to say Lola left her a message on the machine asking to reconcile.
"Great! Are you going to return the call?", I said, anticipating her "of course! I’ll call her tomorrow." and then maybe they’d eat lunch.
and maybe next Christmas I’d have to hop to one less house to repeat holiday rituals for we could host Lola and my mother’s father at the same time!

My mother’s response: "No. I was home. I let the machine pick up"
"What? Why? She wants to make amends!"
"If I talk to her and your father finds out he will go ape-shit and make her life hell like he did a few years ago before she told me she had to stop talking to me."
"I talked to her about this. My father has no control over her. She is a seventy-th…something woman!"
"It’s for her protection."

At which point I went ape-shit.

"Yeah you try and take that to your therapist. I bet she calls BULLSHIT on you right away. BULLSHIT. BALZAC."
"I don’t appreciate you yelling at me. I’m not the bad guy. I’m doing this for her. Your father will make her life hell."
"How will he find out if none of us tells him? He doesn’t control her! "
I haven’t spoken to my mother in weeks since I’ve been on closing duty and keeping really odd hours.
That phone call was the first non-facebook/email contact.
It lasted 11 minutes. I lost the ability to speak after only six.
She hung up.
I cried.

Which surprised me.
Why was I crying? I haven’t cried in a long time. I didn’t think I was so attached. Where was my perspective? My hard shell?

Sobs attacked my lungs and tear ducts.
I sat at my computer and imagined a giant foot stepping on my family tree.
I wiped my tears away, clearing the path for more.
I wanted a hug. But I didn’t want to call someone, let alone touch anyone.

I felt like I’d won an Academy Award, only to have George Clooney stride on stage in the middle of my speech, take it back and say "Hah ha. You thought this was real? On what planet would you actual get an Oscar?"

Like I’d walked unexpectedly off an unfinished bridge.

Like getting adopted but then being told they decided not to keep you.

             fool me twice.

I did not like being blind-sided by my true feelings.
I’m used to letting things slide off me. Think about them later. Maybe never.
Bitch about them in my diary and releasing my kvetches from captivity.

So I pulled open my desk drawer and opened my Simple Diary.
I sniffed at my tears and wrote: "Apparently this meant more to me than I realized. It’s like a cruel bait and switch. I thought one broken branch might have grown back healed. Instead it snapped."