Dark hole

It's that time of year again for the dark blanket of depression to smother me from the inside out. I always forget how bad it gets sometimes; the sunshine seems to erase the memories. But then the temperature drops, and the snow falls, and the inversion sets in, and I'll be damned if I'm not crawling back into bed 10 minutes after getting up and wishing that the world would just go away.

The funny thing about depression is that if you are already depressed, and then you are given something to be depressed about, it's a vicious case of vertigo as you plummet to the bottom. And, just so you know, there is no bottom. Just when you think you are hitting it, you find that there are basements, then underground parking levels, then, of course, hell...

So here's something to be depressed about. I'm trying to go through all of this while not letting it affect my son.

How can you explain to a 2 year old that mommy just doesn't have the energy today? That mommy just can't focus on him, and that mommy needs to be alone, and that mommy's emotions aren't about him? How can you explain to a 2 year old that depression is ridiculously selfish, and there isn't a goddamn thing you can do about it?

Well, you can't.

So my goal is to give him the bit of energy that I do have. To give him those few moments when the sun is out and the blanket of fog has lifted from my mind. To give him that little bit that I have to give. And to hope that it is enough.

I think every parent has their moments when they say to themselves, 'maybe someday they'll understand,' in the hopes that maybe someday our kids will understand. And as the kid of parents, there are things that I understand now about my parents that I never understood growing up. It took 30 years to understand, but it happened.

I hope it doesn't take 30 years for Owen to understand me and my depression, and I also hope that he doesn't understand too early either. I don't want him to spend any time as a child worrying about mommy's sadness. I want to hide it all from him.

A person can dream, can't she.