Many Silent Labors

Let me preface this by saying that there were a couple days this week where I did not take my medicine for one reason or another. I am treated, I am well. This little tale is simply an anomaly.
It is early. 5:30am early. I can’t sleep, and as I sit here typing, I get a little weepy. Not sure why. I used to think it was kind of cute, this uncontrollable crying, saying as I wept with someone through a story, “No, no. It’s the damnedest thing. Even the tissue commercials get to me.” But that was back when it cleared quickly. Now it’s just sad. Someone will be in the middle of a sentence about taking her kids to see bears at the zoo and I will cry. I cannot believe Anna is such a good mom that after Cody and Caleb watch the bears sleep in the tall grass she lets them eat ice cream and wash their hands in the sprinklers by the giant webbed dome! I know what you’re thinking. It’s not just the mention of water, like when someone calls out waterfall when I really have to pee. It is because I love Anna, and I worked with her at camp, and she used to be really wild and crazy, surprised at herself and kind of braggy when she finally was able to hold a camper’s hand for the first time, and now here she is, living her life, loving on herself and all her mighty little kids. I’m sort of backdoor bragging here, in case you didn’t notice. I love too much.
Clark is up, finally. It’s 6:30am. I don’t hear anything until the cereal box rustles and I catch the clank of the spoon against the bowl. I want to walk downstairs because Sharky got up when he heard Clark and jumped down off my bed and now I am lonely up here with my big scary computer and you are looking at me. I want to walk downstairs, but I’m afraid Clark will be alarmed, will ask me how I slept, will be skeptical of my answer, afraid the sleeping pill isn’t working, scanning my eyes for any signs I might be going manic again. Chill out, Clark. Everyone loves you and Sara won’t be mad if we just keep it to ourselves that I only got 3.5 hours of sleep last night.
I hear the garage door open and shut. I text Clark to bring me a biscuit when he goes to get Sara a drink from McDonald’s. Clark and Sara love McDonald’s, mostly for its drinks, and now I do, too. Don’t get me wrong, I have always loved McDonald’s. Growing up we used to try to climb the indoor apple tree but our little shoes were velcroed and didn’t have the type of adhesive it takes to scale plastic. Clark and Sara spend every day circling the drive-thru anywhere from two to five times — large diet coke for Sara, sweet tea for Clark — and now I have gotten sucked into their vortex. I have had so many diet cokes lately my ability to jump out of a car and tumble through a rollicking fire has been stunted.
This is nonsensical.
I feel weird, I go downstairs. I sit in my spot on the sofa, and Sharky assumes his tiny spot nestled into the other corner. We sigh. I wonder why I am up so early, and I worry. And then they start. A series of many silent labors that leave me in cinders on the inside and clammy on the out. The Big Fears descending like shooting stars from my psyche through my heart and into the pit of my stomach. A panic attack. Hellish fears of obsession and compulsion coupled with grandiose anxiety. Deep-seated fears that will keep coming back in waves, over and over throughout the day. I sit silently in a safe space with my pounding, sick and piercing, cold wet heart. I listen to my head and do its bidding, writing down the things that make me scared. I call it my Super-Shit List. We are on a rollercoaster, my heart, my stomach and me, and my head is operating the ride. See why I say super-shit?
Sara wakes and calls my name. She can hear me typing from the other room. I stand up and go to her, though I don’t tell her what is going on at first. She is getting ready and is quiet, a calm which I don’t want to disturb. After standing silently for a few minutes, feeling comforted by simply being in the same room as Sara, I let her have her space and go back in the other room in search of Sharky. He is still in his corner, and I take a seat beside him and rub his ears and back. When I feel another wave coming, I scoot down to my well-worn spot and become very aware of the light coming from the lamp to my left. It has too much heat. “Steady the boat, steady the boat,” I say to myself.
Sara comes out of the room and she knows. I don’t even have to say 10 words and she knows. Reese has been here before, and in college, nonetheless. I was young and I didn’t know, or I knew and wasn’t aware. I remember joking around with Reese one time when he was going through something similar to this and getting scolded — scolding to Reese was sometimes hurt faces and Reese letting on to his feelings through Bassett barks. I knew that I didn’t know.
Sara suggests I go outside, take Sharky for a walk to the water, if I feel okay enough to do it. I have been up long enough by then to say that I think I’ll be able to. Sometimes it is hard for me to get up the courage to walk around outside of the house. I ask Sara to keep her phone close by, then I leash up Sharky, and leave for the park by the sound, a four-minute walk from our house. There are no cars, no bikes, and no shoes lying around. We are the only ones there. I unleash Sharky and bake in the late July heat. I am surrounded by beauty, I know. I remember Reese and his marketing for mindfulness. I always wanted to punch Reese in the throat for his talk of mindfulness, but today I pay attention to one thing he mentioned that I could do that might make me feel better. I count four things I see, four things I hear, four things I smell, four things I feel. I start naming these things, talking to myself in my mind, anchoring in my senses and the guidelines of the world around me. It helps. I call it observation, and it is. I like it, but I am aware that this type of observation, like anything, can lead to obsessiveness, compulsion. I am boring myself with this talk, but it is all I can think of. I name some more, I start feeling better. Sharky is in the water and he is swimming and I watch him some, he lets me be. He comes back over to the floating dock and jumps up, a two-year-old dog in a 12-year-old’s body. He shakes and snaps at his leash when I call him, jackass.
Clark, Sara and I go to lunch, then Sara and I go to a few places to shop. I do not want to engage in an activity too long and hot for my mind, and I feel like both golf and kayaking, which Clark and Sara love to do, would be hell. We go to Walmart because Sara needs toothpaste and ant killer. I see, shit, I forget to name the things I see. I feel weird again, but I enjoy the brief conversation with the lady behind the register. She has teeth that are set back in her mouth and she gets off at 2. Her time is nigh. Our transaction is punctuated with laughter, and we leave.
Back in the car, I have to hold the armrests and breathe deeply. I don’t know how long this will last. I accept the diet lemonade from the lady-girl at Chick fil A, and Sara comments on the commotion going on behind the window. They are not nice, this is unprecedented, I do not care. It is kinda funny, though. I imagine the snow cloud of ice cream on their ice dream cones to be a big mound of “my pleasure.”
Sometime around dusk I start feeling better. We go home, grab Clark and go eat Mexican. I am excited because this is the last week I will be off my diet — I will start going back to the gym on Monday and so tonight I can eat anything I want. This happens every week. I order the veggie Sincronizada, no spinach. This spinach is canned and you can taste it. I will leave it for Popeye because I love Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall and good god, He Needs Me is a good song.
I go home, go to sleep, sleep well, really well, on the couch in my parents’ living room in case Panic comes back to town. I am not following that shit, no matter how few songs they can fit into fourteen hours, no matter how many cool kids come to each show from different places, no matter how many drugs people get to do. People say Panic and I will run the fuck away.
Whiiiiiich might be panic. Anyway, building up structure applying for jobs and journaling, gonna do some mind training, read some books, talk to some folks, go to the gym. I just went through the darkly scariest day of my life and I didn't cry one time.
Thank you, and good night.
