Good Days, Hard Days

My kid has had five good days in a row. This is a massive breakthrough, and I find myself feeling as if the ground is shifting under me, or maybe the sky is shifting over me - a sense of vertigo with this new upbeat person in our home. People talk about medical conditions all the time. Particularly in children, we tend to romanticize illness, as if the sick child is somehow endowed with unique powers of resiliency, or good-heartedness, or a range of solid character traits that he or she supposedly gained from the experience of having managed the obstacle of the medical condition, or disability, or whatever you care to call it.

This is not the case with the depressed and anxious child. Primarily, her illness may be a secret from our friends and neighbors. For the most part, it is, for me, something shared with the very few. When she is in the hospital, we are especially isolated. People do not bring food and send flowers. Indeed, only those few people know about it. We want to preserve her privacy and protect ourselves from peoples' reactions. Often, folks are as compassionate as they can be; at other times, people do not understand the distinction between major depression and the regular depressed feelings everyone has at times. I am not interested in educating. And honestly, it is painful to share. There are too many implications, and the blunt reality that my child is thinking that hurting herself is a good option because her life is that painful; she is pale and quiet; she cries and cuddles up to me like a small child, which she is not.

It is ironic that my relief with these good days is followed by my own anxiety - a delayed reaction, perhaps to all of the worry that I hold in and that I held in with my first child. It's not that I keep a veneer of calm - hardly - but I am the confidant, and the main caretaker in these matters, and I must hold myself together to take care of my dear daughter. When she feels bad, I feel bad, but I have little time for that because she needs me to listen, to reflect, to remind her that she does have good days, that it always passes, and that she is slowly following a pattern of getting better. Now that she is so much better than she was even a short time ago, I need reminders for myself: she is okay. I need to wind back to when my son was ill, too, and tell myself the same thing: he is doing well now, and he is a fine young man. But honestly, where does it leave me? Feeling a vague sense of what might be desperation, anticipating the inevitable moment of the next bad day.

Artifice, Love, and Dicks

Last night, Rugelah and I watched a show in which older women and younger women competed against one another for the attentions of a tall guy with an accent and a pea for a brain. Really, though, how intelligent could these women be? You may be wondering why I'd watch with my daughter. It's because I'm a bad and hypocritical mother. Besides, the day before, I made a major effort to attend the Impeach Bush/Cheney protest in Kennebunkport, so my Good Mother Points were way up there. Rugelah didn't come with me, but I set a helluva good example. Big Kid said it was futile to go, and that really set me off - a cynical teenager - so I had to go. And with my Mommy and Daddy, no less.

There were lotsa people there. On the shuttle bus, I sat next to an amiable fellow who spends half the year around Maine, half in Florida. He looked maybe fifty-five, and he chatted about Bush's many violations of the law. As the bus neared its destination, he lowered his head and said something on the evidence that 9/11 was really an American, home-grown job. Oh Lord, I thought to myself. I can't abide conspiracy theories: they're just too hokey, or something. Even when Ball & Chain was convinced Rugelah had conspired to lose her glasses, it caused terrible turmoil in our home, and it turned out to be untrue. At the rally, some talented speakers did a good job of making a point. Some other people campaigned for Kucinich and I'm like stick to one issue, puhleez.

So back to my low-brow activities. After a day of blathering on about the inadequate and inaccurate media coverage at George Bush's summer shack, I needed some down-time. Way down. I think it was called Love Connection, or something like that. Ooh, remember that show? People would try to figure out if they had the connection. there was some catch, like they couldn't see each other? Horrors. On the show last night, a buncha women just prayed that a guy would choose them over the others. The so-called man was an utter boor, kissing everyone, and whining on about how hard it was for him to choose. Each woman, in succession, talked about her growing feelings for him. It was a little like an election, I suppose, with everyone getting all hyped up about someone we don't really know. We feign strong feelings for the person, but then if we find out he got an illicit blow-job, we're like 'kick him off the island,' or the show, or the Presidency.

Who the hell would ever join a gang of a buncha women waiting to be noticed by one guy? How utterly demeaning. Each of them, Rugelah pointed out, had flat tummies, large breasts, and - I noticed - a pleading expression (please pick me!). We agreed that neither of us would ever sit around in a herd, hoping not to be dismissed. Yet as a public policy matter, it seems we all do that. Who are these people who run for the Big Office? I never met them. They are strange men, literally strangers, pretending to know us. The point is, don't fuck around with strangers, especially on t.v., and probably if they're the President, and absolutely not if you are meant to compete with a herd of needy Barbie-dolls. (No offense, Barb, I'm sure you're monogamous.)

We missed the best part of the show, though, or what looked like it would be: one of the women was getting ready to ditch the guy. There was no chemistry, and she was ready to be done. She talked empowerment, but that ended quickly. He asked her to stay, then there was a commercial, and then by the time we got back, she had returned to the herd of girlfriend-wannabes. So, begging your pardon, this really is like the Presidency. It's a lot of artifice, it's televised, people feel passionately. The problem is, after the Presidency Show, the dumbass main character is truly still living in the White House, and he's already chosen a scary partner, a real Dick.