This one's gonna be a little hard to write as well. Even though it is kind of an interesting catharsis, it's...well...it's hard.
I still haven't gotten out of my own way.
The above photo is from a VO job I managed to do yesterday. Terrified, short-of-breath, not in good vocal form, but good enough, apparently, to have them say 'thanks, see ya next time.' N was there and says I was being too hard on myself and that it sounded fine. And she's probably got a point to some extent, but still...it was not my 'A' game.
But that isn't the real issue. The real issue is me. Standing in front of me. Stopping me. From being me.
Maybe this will explain it better. It is now about 6pm. I am finishing off a second bowl of absurdly good tomato/feta/artichoke-heart pasta N threw together.
We have returned from a full and successful day. I am curled in the corner of the couch, typing away.
I did another VO job in the morning. We opened a joint bank account--funny how long some things take to get around to when you marry 11 years after you meet (for a running total of sixteen). But every year since getting hitched we've had a problem depositing our tax refunds, so we figured; might as well.
I went to my agency and recorded an audition.
We went to a movie, where I ate a half pound of chicken salad smuggled in (which in New York translates as 'brought in with me, you got a fucking problem with that?")
I ate a small popcorn, slowly and carefully. I drank a pretty good percentage of a Sierra Mist--they don't have Sprite, and Coke, sadly, is still a little harsh on the throat.
I lined up another possible audiobook gig for the coming weeks. I responded to a slew of emails. I got back in line with my union duties.
We heard word that the announcement of N's Book has made the rounds and is generating good response and sales already.
I walked from 7th and 16th to 5th and 19th to 8th and 22nd to 7th and 25 to 16th and 7th, with lots of stops but without falling over or dying. And even in a bit of rain.
So, sounds like a good day, right? Or at least an average day?
For me that's a fantabulous day of epic proportions the likes of which I have not seen in weeks if not months. It is the equivalent of Lazarus getting a hand out of the stinking grave he was in, then immediately throwing a leg over a new Harley Heritage Softail, and cruising the Sunset Strip like the star of a Motley Crue video...or something.
Now...back up to about 11 this morning. I took an Ativan at 10 in order to be ready for the VO job at noon--I am not comfortable with that need, but have accepted it.
I am curled up in the same corner of the couch. I am weeping like a chubby schoolgirl mocked by a cheerleader. I am almost paralyzed with fear; fear that I will drop dead on the street. I am short of breath, my chest feels three sizes too small, I cannot look my wife in the eye while she tries to talk me down, and all I really want to do is lie flat on the couch.
I firmly believe--firmly like babies believe there's always a boob out there somewhere--that if I lie still enough, the world will forget I'm here and I won't have to do anything.
Day 36, Phase II--welcome to acute self-induced agoraphobia.
Sure, I am on chemo. I am medically poisoned to the Nth degree. My numbers are getting lower every day, my skin is almost translucent, what stubbly hair I have makes me look like an adolescent ostrich, and I couldn't run up a flight of stairs if Rush Limbaugh were chasing me with hot sauce screaming 'pretty-boy barbecue!' at the top of his Vicodin-lined lungs.
But I am not, by any stretch, as close to dead as I feel. It is all a terror I have developed about going out, trying to be normal, trying to interact with the world.
It is as if, as soon as I took the plunge into allowing that I was sick enough to need Ativan to keep me level, I overcompensated in the other direction. Like my psycho-emotional system had its pride hurt and so, to prove it was still supreme, screwed my mentality up in the other direction, convincing me that I am so close to the edge of the great nothing that I can only lie in bed, lie on the couch, or drag my hapless carcass to the hospital on chemo days.
For the past five days I have been crying about as frequently as I have been peeing. And I have not really been able to say why.
What I am trying to say is: I'm depressed. Except, I think this one has a big D.
And that's a tough one to take, for me. It is a slap of empathy I never thought I would feel. It will probably make me a better person in the long run, but right now it just feels humiliating.
I tended to think that most depression was self-indulgent. I tended to think that you got depressed because you weren't active enough, or you weren't getting enough out of a day, or you just weren't doing a good enough job of being a person to stay in a good mood.
I was--to paraphrase Eliot--almost, at times, a dick.
A real dick.
And this flaw was (is) one of my deeper ones. This one goes down into the roots. This sense that you can overcome something as flimsy as anxiety or a dark mood by cranking music, going for a run; hell, just being more like me, fer chrissakes!
That was my thinking. And I have been brought low. And I deserve it. A friend just sent me a quote: "There are two types of people: those who are humble, and those who are about to be."
In the space of three weeks or so I have gone from being addled by fear that I might need a happy pill every once in a while to overcome some panic attacks, to quivering on the couch in the heat of an overwhelming personal pity-party the likes of which I could not have even imagined two weeks earlier.
And N, of course, bore the brunt. Trying different forms of logic and love and therapy-talk every day these long weeks, throwing spaghetti at my flip-outs and seeing what might stick.
And, N, of course, brought me out. She took the intuitive leap required to see that someone needed to yell at me a little, kick my ass a little, and get me outside.
After that, positive momentum slowly built.
I had fears, I had thoughts that maybe these short-breath can-I-do-it? days, these do-you-think-we-should-go-to-the-hospital-today? mornings, these temperature-taking, dry-heaves-on-the-hour evenings were psychosomatic.
My stepfather has said from the get-go: 'During my chemo, I went outside every day, rain or shine, just to do it.'
I nodded, smiled, knew better...dumbass punk kid. Schooled again.
Sure, I suspected there was a mental element to it. I mean, if you are as arrogant as I am and think that your mind is capable of great things, then it must logically follow that you think that your mind can be capable of greatly bad things.
But never did I think I could damage myself this way, get in my way this way, make a mockery of myself this way.
Never. I didn't think I had it in me.
Well--he says, trying to salvage some pride--I do.
Long and short of it: Yes, I am very weakened, sickened, by the chemo, and can only function physically at a level light years below the one I am used to to.
But I am not the slick, gawping baby bird on the hot pavement below the nest my mind has pushed me to believe.
I am not.
That's just Depression over being sick. And I have to work though that.
Left foot. Right foot. Repeat.
Repeat, Goddammit. Repeat.
