The View from a Drawbridge

On the day of this writing, this image popped up in my Facebook memories.

I took it in 2012. My caption read, “I’m guessing the Maytag Repairman for Milan, Georgia, population 689, is probably even more lonely than the average.”

I was in a weird head space back then. I had graduated from Dental Laboratory Technology school, with honors, 3 months previously. It was slowly dawning on me that I had just obtained my third useless degree, which I had pursued in an effort to get my life on track. But even though I had contacted and subsequently sent resumes to 200 dental labs all across the country, I was jobless.

To go back to college at the ripe old age of 45, I had quit my job and sold my house right when the housing bubble had burst. With no job prospects in sight, no home, and depleted savings, I now found myself much worse off than when I started. I had absolutely no idea where to go or what to do.

My sister came to my rescue once again. I was staying in her admittedly lovely guest house in, unfortunately, The-Armpit-of-the-Universe, Georgia. (Georgia is one of the few states that I look at with more disdain than Florida.) It was so far from civilized society that I had to drive 20 miles just to have internet access or a phone signal. But it was a roof over my head, and I was grateful for it.

I knew I was wearing out my welcome, though, because my brother-in-law was aggressively insisting that I apply for a job as a prison guard with the Georgia Department of Corrections. A prison guard. Me. The woman who hates confrontation and noise and violence and fluorescent lighting, and who was, at the time, very easily intimidated. And after nearly 30 years, my brother-in-law knew all this. So, obviously, he was of the opinion that throwing me to the wolves was preferable to having me stay in that guest house any longer.

I believe it was about that time that I also posted this picture on Facebook:

This sign was on the road to the guest house. My caption was, “The story of my life.”

In an effort to avoid making my life even worse, I did not apply for that prison guard job and settle down in the back of Georgia’s beyond. (I shudder to think of what my life would be like right now if I had.) Instead, I called my former employer and all but begged to get my bridgetending job back.

Say what you will about me, I’m a damned good bridgetender. I got my job back right away. I’m sure my brother-in-law did the Watusi upon hearing the news.

I quickly realized that I hadn’t come full circle. It was more like a downward spiral. I was back in Jacksonville, Florida, barely making above minimum wage, with zero benefits, and now I was paying twice as much in rent as I had been paying in mortgage.

Any fool could see that this was not sustainable. But lord knows I tried. I tried for 2 more years.

During that time the man I loved abruptly died. His adult children took everything of his that I had to remember him by, and my landlord quickly kicked me out, knowing I wouldn’t be able to make the rent without him. It was an illegal apartment, so I didn’t have a leg to stand on. I was homeless for about a week while I sorted this out, and moving proved to be an additional stressor.

I became a shadow. I just went robotically from my awful apartment to my inadequate job and back again. I’d go days without talking. Even my dogs were worried about me.

When I looked at my Facebook memories today and saw that old picture of the rotting, obsolete, boarded up Maytag repair store, baking in the sweaty Georgia sun, it brought me right back to that horrible period in my life. I can’t think of any image that would sum it up better.

And in retrospect, I can now see that the few weeks in the guest house was the hellish apex (if there is such a thing) to my plunge into Even-Worse-ville. It’s not where anyone should be. And I couldn’t seem to get out of there until August of 2014.

People always say we should live for the moment. Be present in our lives. Seize the day. I think that’s a great idea if your life is relatively pleasant and you have even a modest amount of prospects and opportunities.

Not all of us have such things, however. Some of us don’t have those things for long stretches of time. It’s really hard to let a smile be your umbrella when you’ve lost your umbrella and you have no expectations of getting it back, because, you know, it was a really cool umbrella, so nobody is going to put it in the lost and found.

Eckhart Tolle says that “Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry – all forms of fear – are caused by too much future and not enough presence.”

I’ve always taken those self-help experts with a grain of salt. Their solutions are usually too simplistic to have much value. And when all is said and done, what they’re saying is, “Snap out of it!”

Not helpful. Not even a little bit.

Yes, Tolle’s quote is brilliant for all of those who are overly worried about the future. To them I say relax. Breathe. Stay present. Appreciate the little things. Yadda, yadda.

But sometimes the present is so unbearable that you can’t even conceive of a future, and if you stay in such a present, you might give up hope entirely. That’s when you know you are in the throes of a deep, dark depression, Dear Reader. Speaking from painful experience, that rarely ends well. In the worst-case scenario, it might even end in a tragic way.

Let’s try to avoid that. Are you with me? When you are at what feels like the lowest point in your life, Eckhart Tolle can go F*ck himself, in my opinion.

To have hope, you have to look toward the future. The more hope you have, the further into that future you can look. In times of despair, when you can’t even see a way forward, you might only be able to look one minute into the future. But that is enough.

Look a few inches ahead of yourself. Imagine the shaft of a shovel in your hands. That shovel is what you need to use to dig yourself out. Just by seeing that something is in your hands, you’re already making progress.

Don’t look up at the massive pile of shit you’re going to have to shovel to get out of your situation. You’ll be overwhelmed if you do that. Instead, just look at the shovel. Even better, just look at the shaft. The blade of the shovel might seem like it’s the size of a teaspoon. It might look fragile. But even acknowledging that you have this tool is progress.

During those two awful years, I went into a dissociative state and just shoveled what seemed like a teaspoon of shit at a time. Just getting out of bed is a teaspoon’s worth of progress. Putting one foot in front of the other? Another teaspoon. Give yourself credit for these things, even if everyone around you seems to be able to do them effortlessly. You’ll get there. But for now, you can handle a teaspoon, right?

Once you get to the point where you’re back to society’s idea of the basic functioning of an average human being, you can then tackle things like being less self-destructive (for example). Later, you will be able to imagine where you want to be. Eventually you’ll be able to plan how to get there.

But meanwhile, keep on shoveling. By now you’re seeing a shaft of light beyond that shaft of a shovel. Hopefully it energizes you. You can see further into the future, because you have some sort of goal, no matter how small it may be. You can make more progress this week than you did last week.

Baby steps. Be gentle with yourself. It takes time to heal and then use that health to get further ahead. This will not be a quick fix. Quick fixes rarely last, anyway.

I got through those two years, even though it felt like it took 50 years. It took a lot for me to get from the awful there to the awesome here that I now find myself in. And I can’t lie. Dumb luck played a huge part as well. But I had to get to the shaft of light before I had any chance at all of having luck shine down upon me.

For today, if the only thing you can manage is sitting up in bed, that’s something. Eventually, you can seize the day if the spirit moves you. But for today, the shovel shaft is enough. You don’t have to try to be president. You don’t even have to be present. You have one job. Just look at the shaft of the shovel.

This philosophy seems a lot more achievable than something coming from Dale Carnegie or Wayne Dyer or Stephen Covey, doesn’t it?  And besides, they’re all rich white males. If you’ve read this far, I’m guessing you can’t relate to their suffering, either.

Maybe I should write a self help book called Eckhart Tolle Can Go F**k Himself: The Depressive’s Guide to Contentment.

Someday. Maybe.

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