Letting It All Hang Out
Growing up, dust covers were the bane of my existence. They would be slid off the newest book I had demanded my parents purchase and discarded somewhere nearby as I contorted myself into an impossible position and spent hours diving into the latest installment of my favorite series.
Removing dust covers was strictly a practical choice. Their lush images and titles were the inspirations for the worlds I’d create in my head while reading. The solid colors of nude hardcover books did provide the same excitement. But what they lacked in visual appeal, naked hardcovers made up for in durability. I could lie upside down on the living room couch, squeeze my book one-handed, and like an orange in the juicer, receive drip after drip of literary adventure.
It was during one of these marathon reading sessions, where a dust cover lay abandoned beside the couch, that my Dad looked down and said, “Your grandmother would have liked this.” My expression must have revealed that I couldn’t understand why Doris, a dignified mother-of-two who liked ski trips to Vermont and playing piano, would be a fan of young-adult fiction. Dad continued, “She collected extra covers.They went on top of her diabetes books.”
Huh?
Dad sat down, looking off into distant memory and spoke deliberately. “Your grandmother had diabetes the last ten years of her life. But until the funeral, none of her friends knew. Diabetes just wasn’t something we had in our family. She hid it for so long! Her friends thought she was just strict about when she ate her meals.” And that was the only explanation I got. At eight years old, I didn’t have the confidence or inquisitiveness to dig deeper.
***
Playing “Cowboys and Indians” hit the double jackpot of violence and racism, and was prohibited in our house. My parents satiated my hunger for the Wild West with age-appropriate historical fiction about the Trail of Tears. I can imagine they might wince if they saw me last weekend, hooting, hollering, and target shooting with one of my friends.
Rotted out grapefruits, last Saturday’s beer cans, and a few empty champagne bottles were all victims to our (probably below-average) marksmanship. Shooting guns in the woods seemed about as far away from the unending stream of multisyllabic words and complex theories that characterize life on campus.
After a few hours, our hands were cold and we were out of ammo. As we walked out of the woods and drove back to campus, we recapped the greatest hits of the afternoon. We talked about the stresses that had driven us to abscond from academia and flee to the firing range, but the conversation ventured past typical perfunctory complaining about papers and deadlines. My friend took a big breath and said, “I’ve never told anyone this, but I think I’m depressed.”
The hum of the engine filled the space his words left.
“Some weeks this semester, I just felt like I couldn’t feel happiness. I just wanted to stay in bed. I know I should probably talk to someone, but I just feel like a bitch. I mean, what’s so bad about my life? Then I get mad at myself for not being able to go get help. Arghhh.”
It took a second for me to reply. “That’s heavy man, I’m sorry about that.” I wished I had something more intelligent to say, but I wasn’t there to speak. The simple act of listening was all I needed to do.
Cranky, crotchety, curmudgeonly, the list of adjectives to describe senior citizens’ eccentricities is endless. Grandma Doris was from a different era, where sharing was discouraged and problems were hidden behind suburban homes’ manicured lawns and department-store curtains. Coupled with a familial aversion to vulnerability, I could see how that environment could create a habit that on the surface seemed beyond ridiculous.
That car ride reminded me that keeping secrets was not so strange at all. I played the part of supportive friend, listening and helping find a solution. My concern was authentic. But I’d be lying if I said a small part of me wasn’t fist-pumping when I heard someone close to me share that they also were a little fucked up.
It’s difficult to write about my tendency to act like everything is fine regardless of what is happening with my body and mind without laughing at myself. Theoretically, I know that I have family and friends that will help me with whatever I need to heal an injury or solve a problem. But when something goes wrong with my body, I always head down a rabbit hole of self-diagnosis and WebMD.
Sophomore year of high school, I noticed a few red welts on my stomach. Must be a few bug bites, I said (they didn’t look anything like mosquito bites). As someone who was proud of my body, I had to change in the middle of the post-gym class locker room. One of my friends noticed my stomach and shouted out, “Bro, that looks like a staph infection!”
I dismissed him with a wave. “It’s just a spider bite, dude.” WebMD showed that it probably was not a spider bite. Each time my shirt brushed against the bump I winced with pain. Man, that must have been a hell of a spider, I thought with stubborn determination.
Two days later, a post-shower examination revealed a series of hard red boils on my stomach. “Mom,” I shouted. “Come here!” We went to the pediatrician, I got antibiotics, and everything turned out just fine.
Telling everyone about that time you not only got a staph infection but then were too embarrassed to tell anyone about it seems like one of the most vulnerable things I can do. It’s more than a funny anecdote about my high school days. It’s something I have in common with Grandma Doris, college friends, and a lot more people. Telling people things seems hard. Hiding, no matter how counterproductive it may be, is easier. But it’s not. And whether or not we talk about it, I bet a lot of people share that they struggle to share things.
