I’m A National Park
Growing up in the fifties meant that when you wanted to play, you knocked on a door. “Can Pat come out and play?” Even in Southern California, a place in which you can live next door to someone you will never meet, we did have something vaguely like a community. “Come on in, Eddie. Would you like some Kool-Aid? Pat went to the store for me. He should be back in about twenty minutes. How are you?” This exchange wasn’t unique, even if it was not typical — Pat was usually home and often answered the door. Every single day children knocked on doors and went outside to play. Often you did not even need to knock on doors because everyone was already outside playing. You simply joined in.
Today a large number of children do NOT knock on doors and do not play outside. Playdates are arranged. Any interaction with other children happens at the daycare center almost exclusively, usually inside around a television. Homes are places of solitude. You do not often see children playing on the street. Video games, smartphones and other devices have created an illusion of community that really is misleading at best and possibly extinct. No one knocks on our door anymore asking us to play and I miss that so much I could cry.
I guess I am so out of practice asking for friends to “play” that I’ve simply stopped asking much. And being the extrovert that I am, this is exceedingly painful. Combine this with very low self esteem, some mental health OCD/anxiety issues, and I tend to feel (regularly) that the best is behind me. I don’t believe I am alone in this thought spiral (and I am not even going to mention the difficult holiday times brought to me by my seasonal affective disorder).
I have been thinking a lot about ERP (Exposure and Response Prevention) therapy that is often successful with folks like me. I used to get trapped in LENGTHY THOUGHT SPIRALS when, for whatever reason, this person and that falls out of my life. “You should expect that! You are not as important as your swelled head thinks. Do you blame them? Better and more important people will ALWAYS take your place. No one will ever really like you for long. For a smart boy, you sure are stupid!…” ad infinitum. When I am able to step away and think about this spiral, my brain tells me how destructive this is.
So what I have been trying to do is to celebrate people and not mourn for individuals. To some extent, my illness tries to tell me that what I am doing is telling friends that I no longer give a shit about them. What my improving mental health responds with is: “People’s lives are complicated and an extrovert like you should celebrate ALL the people who make living interesting and fun. Savor those moments with special friends BECAUSE they are finite. Trust yourself to be interesting enough to keep meeting and loving people. And for god’s sake, stop turning friendships into a competition or a math equation.”
I’d like to scream: “FREE AT LAST,” but this is a war with many battles EVERYDAY. That tape that tells you how worthless you are does not go away because you are nice or kind or smart or mad or anything. It is a part of you. I am trying to love that part of myself. I am trying to recognize that this illness actually helps me empathize with others. It often forces me to recognize and correct errors BEFORE I make them, at the same time that it may also paralyze me into thinking that nothing I will do will ever be good enough.
Progress to an outsider (i.e. EVERYONE else) may not seem significant. And these issues are much more complicated than I could ever adequately explain. However I know that I am making progress when:
- I can write about it
- I can write poems (see below)
- I can sleep at night (mixed success)
- I drink enough water and eat well (despite pictures on Facebook this isn’t always true)
- I can stop listening to a song before it ends
- I don’t have to win 5 games of hearts in a row before doing something I should
- I can stop thinking about why I don’t see [insert name here] anymore and replace it with anticipating a new event
- I can list five good reasons why living TODAY is good and have a plan for tomorrow
There are more bullet points I could add to this …
If I have written well, this blog post will communicate the fact that good mental health is not easy, not simply a matter of “taking charge” or “thinking good thoughts.” Often it is recognizing when you are in a spiral and either accepting it or distracting it (by breathing, by drinking water, by putting on music, by reading, …). I used to think that friends were a part of the equation (and I am NOT consistent because they may well be), but I am making more progress by accepting that friends need to work on their own lives, while I work on mine.
Don’t get me wrong: PLEASE KNOCK ON MY DOOR SOMEDAY AND ASK ME IF I CAN COME OUT AND PLAY. I will love you forever.
In the meantime here is a poem (AND GOD DO I LOVE POETRY) that does a better job of being me than this blog does:
I Am A National Park
by Ed Spicer
If I were a National Park most friends would
never see me
or just once or twice
glad to have me
there
with my waterfalls
and wildlife
rainbow colors
unique geological formations…
My rotten egg stench
quaint and quirky —
perfectly acceptable
as it bubbles up or erupts,
my crumbling cliffs
savored and watched over prayerfully —
everyone wishing me well…
But you would not be
my park ranger
or even the host at the lodge dining hall
or the weekly garbage collector…
Maybe I am Meijer Gardens instead —
with the butterflies that bring annual visits
and we would linger over giant spiders
and a bronze horse that looks like driftwood
in awe of shriveled bonsai oak trees
and children and culture and art…
You remember me fondly in the winter
and speak of visiting in the summer
even though the heat and humidity
keep you air-conditioned…
Plans would be made for concerts
and you love the music that
eventually
you listen to on your phone
imagining you are sitting
in a lawn chair on a grassy slope
smelling the flowers and the scent of
hundreds of joyful dancers
who love Meijer Gardens…
Maybe I am a church instead
and you sit bored
each week
pretending to be raised
or saved,
but if you were heaven
we would never meet.
So I will be that National Park
Meijer Gardens
church
and maybe even a museum or two
to showcase a few ancient relics
of which I am proud.
I consider being a grocery store
or a gas station
and wonder what it would be like to be a school.
I dream of being a party.
