Sprung Mind for Spring

As long as I can recall winter has been too long, too dreary, too cold, and too depressing. (Dreading it still isn't enough to move me from Western New York.) When the first tulips peek out of the dead grass, and the skunk cabbage carpets the edges of the creek, I begin to come alive again. Hope restored! Life is worth living!!! Open the windows!!!!

Last spring came as the first spring without our son, who died from brain cancer in the fall. To say it was still dark, still long, still depressing would be a serious understatement. I really cannot put into words the pain and subterranean sadness I wear like a cloak. This spring is slightly less dreaded, slightly brighter and promising. Having survived the first spring, a second should be surmountable.

Cue medication change! I have been on one anti-depressant or another for 20 years. Eventually they stop working and it's time to switch to another. This is the year. Last week I started the slow decrease to clear the path for another pill that, hopefully, gives me some energy and will to get my rear end off the couch. I am trying to liken it to a spring cleaning of the mind, not the wrecking ball of craziness it seems to be unleashing.

If my mind were a house, it's clogged up like a mansion on Hoarders. In the attic are dusty boxes of self doubt, soggy with condensation. The cold in this sparsely insulated space is deep, clinging to the bones. It takes effort to throw open the one window and start heaving junk out onto the warm lawn. Some of the boxes break open, spilling contents that have remained hidden for years and years.

The second floor houses tottering heaps of guilt, stacked precariously one atop another, leaning against the walls and each other to stay upright. This is harder to clear, pulling one causes an avalanche threatening to suffocate and close the throat. Hard hat, gloves, and a shovel. Slow progress, very methodical and careful. Eventually the floor becomes visible, stained from the years of leaking.

To the main floor! This one is crowded, but easier to empty right out the front door. Kitchen full of what-ifs, dining room of I should haves, living room with days wasted not living. Empty, sweep, scrub, slowing at the end only because the basement entryway is leering, laughing at the progress, waiting.

The basement holds the dregs, the unlighted mass of debris left to the bowels of the home. It's not a delightful man cave suburban basement. It's an old farmhouse basement with stacked stone walls that seep water onto the dirt floor. Low beams of logs with bark, draped with decades of spider webs and dust. Mice droppings, rat droppings, stray cat droppings. Beyond damp to wet, still, quiet. Waiting for the scratch of vermin on pipes. Here is where I falter, where I am petrified, frozen in the doorway. Here is where I stay, waiting for the scent of true Spring to push me into the abyss of mind with a flamethrower.

As of this writing I am still on the main floor, the hard to reach corners and cubbies, cleaning and re-cleaning to hold off the most dreaded feelings. Is everyone like this or just me? Is it medication or lack of medication? Death of the only child, center of my life for 15 years? What makes me broken, fearful of truly knowing myself? Hopefully, when the sun comes out in force, I can sit with myself and find the answers. Spring has sprung.