Abundant Sunshine

I was reading the forecast on the Weather Channel page and they called for "abundant sunshine" on Sunday. I like that. Someone there must have a touch of a poet's soul.

Last night I attended to an orchestra concert, mainly for two reasons: I wanted to see a friend who performed with the ensemble, and also because I was in desperate need of hearing music that didn't involve farmers and dells or old brass wagons or scary ghosts and jolly pumpkins or any possible affiliation with Disney's High School Musical (Zac Efron's apparently a tween McDreamy).

I stayed late at school and worked that day and drove straight up, so I didn't have a great deal of time to think about the evening before I actually got there, but while I was driving I started considering whether or not actually going to this concert was a very good idea...whether I should just turn around and go home and claim car trouble or lingering illness and just watch Grey's Anatomy in my sweatpants instead.

It's a deplorable reality, but for people who've gone through some sort of major depression, everything has to be approached in terms of "Will this be a good or bad thing for me?" It's a bit mindblowing to find out how incredibly fragile one can become after a bunch of really bad things get to them. Two descriptions of me over the course of the separation and its aftermath really bothered me: when a therapist at the time said I had symptoms of suffering post-traumatic stress disorder from a combination of everything being so bad for so long, and then having the really, really bad things hit hard and fast during the course of the summer; and when a close friend described me in an email as having a "haunted, sad look when she thought no one was watching." Neither of them seemed accurate, because in my own mind I'm usually fairly cheerful, except when I'm not. If I'm quiet, it's because I'm thinking about whether I need to buy cat food or where the last place I saw my cell phone was, or whether I should tape The Office on Thursday. I didn't realize I was still damaged.

But I guess part of being that damaged is that you don't really get to know your own mind; you have to have someone else diagnose it for you, at least at first. I don't think it should be any surprise that I emerged on the other side of this marriage a changed person, but at the same time I had no idea how translucently fragile I came across to everyone else. It's a pathetic reality, being hyper-conscious of your own emotional shortcomings, but it's also kind of essential.

My shrink stressed at every session that before I do anything...however trivial, I need to assess whether it's going to be good for me, or whether it'll plunge me back down into some sort of spiral. So something as simple as a Hot Pocket for lunch can become an ordeal, and I have to stop and ask the same ridiculous questions: Are there any particularly happy moments attached to the preparing and eating of a Hot Pocket that will make you feel lonely and empty right now? Did a Hot Pocket ever get thrown at your head during an argument? (one of the reasons I avoid cranberry juice now) It's incredibly tedious to have to do this--to walk on eggshells around your own self--but I've been to Crazyville, and I'll do just about whatever it takes not to go back.

Since, I left straight for last night's orchestra concert from work, I really didn't think through the "Will it be good for me?" questions until I was on my way up there. Immediately I started getting nervous, because the last live concert I attended was the very last one I ever played. It was Bruckner in the second half...it went well and I got pats on the back for my solo playing. When I went home, there was a fight waiting for me. It was arrogant, and maybe even sinful to pursue a career in performance, he said. I'd never be able to support us on a freelance salary, and I wasn't all that talented anyway. And since I had absolutely no idea who I was at that point, I gave in to make the arguing stop. I just nodded...yes, yes, yes...I'll be done with it. I dropped out of ensembles and focused entirely on getting a teaching job with a decent salary. We never spoke of it again, but the quiet screaming in my head whenever I thought about it was evidence that I had cut something incredibly vital out of my life.

So coming to this concert, I wasn't really sure what to expect of myself. Bitterness? Tears? More inconsolable rage that could only be mitigated with a bottle of tequila? I sat nervously in my seat and folded my program into a bastardized origami swan over and over, waiting for some sort of insanity to start creeping into my brain.

Strangely, nothing happened. I don't know if it was because my friend was generous enough to hang with me after the concert and we both sank into a very comfortable, sugar-high fueled conversation and I got to laugh more than I had in months, or if maybe somehow I've become a whole person again. I really don't know. I just know that I was okay when I didn't think I would be and knowing that is a really, really good feeling.

Abundant sunshine. I really like that.