Evening thoughts

Sitting there just now, I started missing my mom so much. I imagined a conversation I would have with someone and my imagined answer called to mind the worst moment in my life. Not the death of my mom, but sort of this moment in which I felt she lost all dignity. What a horrible thing to witness.

She’s been in the back of my mind since early this afternoon. A realization had hit me then and I think its significance never left. What I don’t know if I said about my recent (now mostly departed) depression that the worst of it was how fucking terrified I was. When logic absolutely escapes you, there’s no telling what impulses might hit.

I think I’m above any really hazardous impulses, but who’s to say? It was chemically-induced. I have a good, good life right now, and no reason to be depressed. Three weeks ago, I wasn’t. And then, black.

I’ve seen things happen on chemically-induced depressions. I saw my mother attempt suicide during hers, a decade and a half ago, when I was 17. Until her death, she never remembered it happening. I remember the pills, the booze, it all. I can’t write about it. Not directly. I’ve tried. Maybe now’s the time, but I haven’t the balls to go there. Not tonight, not now.

Suffice to say it wasn’t until this past August that I realized my walking in on her trying to off herself wound up colouring every relationship and friendship I’ve ever had. My fear of abandonment, my fear of risks, my fears in so many areas. Many of them I’ve now dealt with or keep well-managed.

There was this time I just felt like a spineless pussy, but knowing there’s a root cause of your actions is pretty fucking wild. It’s like a key to get out of the hatchback on the guilt-trip.

I used to be angry at her, but I let go of most of that before she died, since we spoke of it one afternoon. I let go of the rest of it in August, upon my realization.

It’s simply amazing what some of these pharmaceuticals can do to us, isn’t it? Ah, medicine.

This was the first time I realized how absolutely black a chemical depression is. Real depression, you can sometimes discern a happy moment. Chemical ones, though, seem to pull a thick curtain over it all. Nothing, but nothing can get through.

For the first time, I think I realize the battle my mother waged then. As fucking evil, albeit thankfully brief, as that 7-10 day period felt, this little packet of post-mortem absolution has somehow given me just a little more freedom from my past. In a sad, doomed kind of way, of course, but understanding my mother’s obstacles gives me better perspective on her.

And really, when they’re dead and gone, you take what you get. Something’s always better than the alternative.