October 18, 2006 ~ Drying Off
Wednesday.
hiking with Grove
Ooh! I feel marvelous! As soon as Grove wakes up I'm going to take him for a little dance around the room, swinging him around until he can't stop giggling. Then we're going to go on a hike. Lately, life has been full of joy.
Why? Well, it's autumn. Autumn is the season when I feel most alive. The crisp air and intense blue skies call me out of hiding. Mainly, though, the last few weeks have been good because I have finally dried off again.
You see, I looked up one day weeks ago and realized that there was water, everywhere, up to my chest. Everything was sodden and dark, and my clothes were soaked and heavy, weighing me down. Moving, even breathing, took enormous effort. How had I let myself get in this deep, without even noticing?
That is how depression is. It seeps in at the edges. Tasks and thoughts get slowly harder, and before you notice you can barely breathe from the pressure. Suddenly, you look up, you realize what has happened, and you recognize that you're deep into the muck.
I found myself at that point of realization a few months ago. How could I be depressed? I was surrounded by love. I had everything to be joyful about. Grove constantly gave me things to be happy about. It felt like a sin to be anything but ecstatic. Grove had nothing to do with it, though. This depression was mostly my own fault.
Isolation was a large part of it. I realized that I had interacted with no one but Morgan, Grove, and the dogs for weeks. I'm an introvert, true, but this was rather extreme even for me.
For months, I was perfectly happy with the seclusion. I had this new little person to get to know. But when Grove was about six months old, I started to realize, "Huh. I get excited when the Jehovah Witnesses come to the door. Maybe there's something wrong with this picture..."
It's a lot of work to get out of the house with a baby. Pack the diaper bag, get him changed and fed and make sure he's well-napped. Take the dogs out, make sure there's clean water in the pen. Get the car ready, get him in his seat, make sure he's clothed appropriately. All while holding him and trying to keep him happy. Usually, by the time we're ready to go it's time for a nap or a feeding or a diaper change again.
Every moment he is awake is a busy one for me. I quickly learned what made him happy and adapted to his needs. Once we were comfortable with our routines, I didn't change them. They were working. I had a happy, calm, well-adjusted baby. Why change things?
To my credit, I did try. I went to a "La Leche League" meeting when Grove was three weeks old, and learned about a local "new moms" group. I tried to go the next week. Got a flat tire. I tried to go the next time, Grove messed his entire outfit spectacularly on the way out the door, and then made it very clear that he needed a nap, and it had snowed, making road conditions dangerous anyway. The next time, Morgan needed the car. Tried to go thenext time and the car broke down on the way there and Morgan's boss had to rescue us. And then the car stayed broken down for a few months since we couldn't afford to fix it... By then, we were entrenched in our routines. You see where this is going. I really started to believe that God Does Not Want Melissa to Make New Friends. So I pretty much gave up.
On top of the social isolation, I had to stop hiking as well. Grove had grown too big to be safely carried in the sling over rough trails. Hiking has always been my best assurance against depression.
And add to that postpartum hormones (which tend to cause depression). Add the huge changes in my life. Add the need to redefine myself as a mother, to see who I had become. Add that I was no longer working. Add that I no longer had time for many of the things I had always enjoyed. And then add all of the cultural expectations of mothers and the general devaluing assigned to a modern woman who chooses not to work but instead raises a child...
When I realized how bad things had become, I resolved to change everything right away. And promptly failed. Spent a few more weeks in a funk.
But then a professor friend gave us a hand-me-down baby hiking backpack. I realized that trying to change everything at once would never work. I would change one thing at a time. So, that week and the next, I went hiking every day that it did not rain. It felt incredible to be out in the woods again.
Soon, I was slowly reconnecting with all of my old friends, one at a time. I started going out to the wolf and wolfdog sanctuary more often. I brought Grove to the Farmer's Market or the Good Will. We'd walk over to main campus and visit with professors or my old coworkers.
Unlike his two extremely introverted parents, Grove is an extrovert. Okay, not just an extrovert; he is a little flirt. As soon as he sees someone, he breaks into a huge heart-melting grin. He inclines his head a little with coy, under-the-brow eye contact. He babbles or giggles at whomever is in front of him. In short, he attracts a lot of attention. Used to slipping by everyone unnoticed, I found it very strange to have so much attention focused on me, carrying him. At the same time, though, when everyone is smiling and laughing and happy when you approach, it really does wonders for your mood. He makes everyone's day better. It's a beautiful thing to watch.
So. Things are much, much better. I'm not completely in the clear yet, but that will take time.
And my next goal is to start writing here regularly again. In order to do that, though, I need to make some changes that'll make it easier to post. With the current system, it takes me twice as long to code and upload an entry as it takes to write it. And with so little time as it is...
So, changes, soon. Perhaps some rather drastic ones. (Redesign? New name? New location?) I'm pretty sure a WordPress installation is in my near future, at the very least.
Thank you for sticking with me through the long, quiet months.
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