Monday, May 7, 2012

music gets me through; up, down and under.

It was a Gary Go's Wonderful kind of morning.  This awful darkness has been descending on me the last few weeks, and getting up and moving around seemed impossible.  So, a little psych up was in order.
But then I couldn't resist a bit of Noah and the Whale's Blue Skies.  Just a hint of wallowing in my chemical malfunctions.  I'm not suffering from a broken heart, but I swear those men tapped into my bones with those bass and piano parts.
I was really tempted to turn on some Radiohead next and just lay on the floor for the morning, but decided on some Ting Tings instead.
Because feeling sassy beats feeling defeated any day.

Honestly, when I hear someone speaking about depression I wonder why they can't just snap out of it, or unthink it.  Because some days you can.  And some days it's like this monster in the room that you can't control, and when you come up for air you see it was just a teeny Sesame Street-sized monster.  But in the moment - you can't see anything clearly.

Last year Als wrote an amazing post about being being on the other side of depression in a marriage.  It was hard to hear, and so good to hear at the same time.  Sometimes I wonder if maybe I should have followed my gut reaction and never gotten married or had children, just to spare other people from the insanity that is me.  But Heavenly Father REALLY wanted me to get married.  And He REALLY wanted me to get married to my husband.  And HE REALLY wanted me to experience WonderGirl and the Dude.  So I do.  Yet it's still such a challenge to see what's real in my head and what's not - what's important to have a panic attack about (or spend an entire weekend sobbing) and what isn't.

And I shouldn't be alone, any way.  Once in grad school I got so lonely I actually got hives.  It's such a crazy balancing act - knowing how much I need people and how much I allow other people have to deal with all of me.

Thankfully, after a psycho-ish experience this afternoon, I could call Jane and she listened to me freak out then made me laugh.  I am so, so thankful for the people who are willing to be my friend.  I don't know if I could be friends with someone like me, and I'm daily grateful for those who are far better humans than I am.

On a slightly related note, you know how they say when you do genealogy, you get this fire for the work and it's addicting?  My parents are in Eastern Europe at this very moment, doing just that.  But when I look at my ancestors, I feel... I don't know how I can describe it.  I'm far too aware of my own mortality - and how I am only granted a blip on the radar screen of this earth's history - as we all are.  So these people on my pedigree charts... who are they?  Were they like me?  What did they want out of life?  Some day I'll have ancestors looking at me - maybe even this blog.  And will they be reminded, looking at my teeny existence - that they too will be a little blip on someone else's pedigree chart?

Yes, I'm morbid.  But my ancestors were peasants.  I don't know of any journals out there that exist, so all I have is names, birth and death dates.  I wish I knew if any of them were insane like me.  If they had irrational fears, or if they ever got to experience one of their dreams come to life during their few years of life.  I wonder the people who come after me will just shake their heads at how I chose to spend my turn on earth.

Okay, shake it off, Reva.  As a palate cleanser, I'm going to listen to one of my guilty pleasures.  And I'm going to actually ADMIT to one of my guilty pleasures - because let's face it, I can be kind of hoity toity when it comes to music and the drivel that is actually popular.  That whole graduate degree in music makes me all uppity.  So I normally hate most R&B since it's usually filthy and misogynistic - and I spend my alone time in the car either listening to the news on NPR or praying for something halfway decent on any of our non-country stations.  And what usually makes my day is when David Guetta's Without You (featuring Usher) comes on.  (I said R&B because that's what Usher usually does)



Last summer I heard a news thingy on NPR about the popular "Four on the Floor" beat pattern many of the summer's biggest hits had, and this song uses it sparingly - leaves you wanting just a bit more, but the build up to it each time is oh-so-satisfying.

Unabashedly (and I am quite an abashed person, really) I rock out and will circle around my destination just so I can finish hopping up and down in the car until the song is done.  I end up feeling hopeful and even 24 again.  What are your guilty music pleasures?

2 comments:

Cath said...

I choose not to feel guilty about any of the music I like. Because if you can't listen to "Eye of the Tiger" really loud in the car with the windows down, what good is being alive??

Jane said...

So true!
And I didn't even realize it was a freak out, so does that mean you're getting better or I am not perceptive? Either way, I'm glad I could help. (Though I totally missed calling you at 6 like I was supposed to and I'm SO SORRY but I blame it on the dude giving me a "safety warning" for texting while sitting at a red light.)

HEAR YE. I need to document the fact that I ran 3 miles and didn't feel like death.  So just to make sure it wasn't a fluke, I did...