After a hiatus, you’d love to come back with a bang. You’d love to hit one out of the park, write the most breathtaking treatise anyone has ever read. Unfortunately, tonight I can barely string these words together, and I hope you’ll forgive me for it. I just needed a place, I just needed a brief second, to catch my breath. To spit some of this poison out where its less damaging to my innards.

I’m overcome by fatigue, by sadness. I’m shuffling through my disappointments like tattered confetti on the floor, like his ashes, spread from an airplane flown low over our town on Friday night. I can’t escape the haunting and sorrow and bitterness in the air all around me. Worse, I’m trapped in the bell jar with all of this, stuck suffocating in some kind of sick snow globe.

I don’t understand people who live in small towns and think their actions are not witnessed, their lies not recorded. I don’t understand how so many people can snap their marriages apart with the effortless ease of stepping on twigs. I don’t understand why I’m feeling so used. I don’t understand incessant racial slurs in front of children. I don’t understand drunken name-calling over the phone. I only understand this: Given enough time, nearly everyone will disappoint you.

Most of the time I appreciate it all so very much, this world in all its painful, breathtaking glory. I swear I do. But sometimes I’m paralyzed, wounded, petty. Sometimes I can’t stop feeling sorry for myself, can’t stop ranting in my head at those I feel have wronged me. And those who haven’t, those who never do — these three beautiful creatures I’m incredibly blessed to share a home with — can’t do a thing to make it better. Not for all the sticky kisses, the breathy mother’s day wishes, the grubby fisted dandelion bouquets in the world — and that is what hurts the most.

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I’m sitting here in the black, and I don’t understand it, because just this morning I could see colors.

Six months ago I quit my meds and up until this moment, I’d been doing so very well. I look outside and I don’t see an artificial neon technicolor prism, but I don’t see sludge and brambles, either. I just see colors as they’re meant to be seen — greens, browns, blues — plain and simple crayons, straight out of the box. I think this is what they call fine. What they call normal.

So how is it that somebody suddenly stuffed me in a cannon and shot me out, landed me here, a thick, black plume in my wake? Why can I only smell sulfur?

It started with a website I accidentally saw, an instant shiv to the kidney, and I was sobbing at my computer before I even knew I was bleeding. Minutes later everything took on this hue, this hazy, pewter hue, and I was a goner.

A good friend once told me I am such a sponge. And she’s right, I know it, I am. I’m a sponge for every person I meet, every book I read, every song I hear, every site I see, every mood I sense. I soak it all in, sop it all up, until the once distinguishable colors bleed into a purple puddle, dripping steadily from my feet.

And I’m sitting here and I’m thinking maybe I’m OK with the trade off. Sure, maybe I feel things a little too deeply, but at least I give, at least I mold, flex, bend, at least I don’t become brittle. At least I don’t break.

And I hear them outside now, the cavalry, coming in, and Gretta’s explaining that Zeus is the god of the sky and Pluto is the god of the underworld and Emma is repeating everything she says and they trip through the door all backpacks and light, and Dave glances sidelong at me, asks, “and who is Aphrodite?” his voice a wink… and it’s almost instantaneous, the way the light shifts, the way the air turns pink, and I know everything will be alright if I can just focus on these people, like the horizon when I’m seasick. Focus on their Crayola colors, on Emma’s Goldenrod curls, Gretta’s Burnt Sienna freckles; focus on their auras of fairydust and newness and everything vibrant, everything utterly true.

And I’m so sick of beating myself up for not always being able to do it alone, right myself. That sometimes I need those three people more than air, that sometimes I need these 26 letters more than water, that sometimes I need to hold perfectly still until I can almost believe the world has stopped itself, gently, kindly, in empathy, waiting for me to catch up. I only wish I knew how to be so gentle with myself. To see myself as they do, through their eyes, bright yellow, aglow.

I know that tomorrow’s a new day — my birthday, in fact — and this is what I’m gonna do.

I’m gonna find as many different colored candles as I can, and I’m gonna light them all.

Once upon a time, when Gretta was a toddler, I told her to trust me and then I nearly drowned her — at which point the heaviest fear I’ve ever felt set in. It was like some God of Terrifying Things was holding me by my ankles and plastering papier-mache-panic upon my body piece by piece, and I was paralyzed but for the involuntary shaking. It wasn’t just that she could have been seriously hurt on my watch, but also that I’d forgotten, for one dazzling moment, to be afraid of everything — and I’d been punished for it. Remarkably, that day, after the shock dripped off, I did what I knew had to be done, for both of us. I forced us back in the water.

Two days ago, I dove headfirst back into blogging, the whole unfathomably large, salty, mysterious, oceanic thing, the feed readers and the stats and ads and designs and community. I jackknifed from the high dive and felt that mind-numbing rush upon impact, fresh and startling, heart-stopping. I have yet to decide if it’s a baptism or a drowning.

I don’t know why I have such a fear of this place. The thing I didn’t say in that Stepping Off post, the thing only a few people know, is that I got scared. There’s a reason I live in the country, twenty miles from the nearest gas station. Sure, it’s scenic, but it’s also private. Very, very private. When the Okay, Fine, Dammit house became a more popular place to be, I was absolutely thrilled. All a writer wants is to be read and heard and trusted and followed, you all know that. But it also felt like there were suddenly all these faces peeking in the windows, and I’d never even thought to buy blinds. Please don’t misunderstand: I invited you, you’re all welcome, I just have to get used to wearing pants, you know?

More than that, though, is the fear of being hated, of being talked about, of being judged. I’ve had only a handful of inconsequential trolls since starting this blog, and though they were mostly drive-by, inane posters, they affected me all the same. And for those other Big Bloggers, the ones who have really made it, the ones who supposedly have what we all want, things are so much worse.

Last night I spent two hours glued to a hate blog, the kind of thing I didn’t know existed until I accidentally stumbled upon it and couldn’t look away. Imagine, an entire blog devoted to bashing Dooce and Pioneer Woman, and others like them. The blog author spewed some of the most rancid vitriol I’ve ever tasted in my life, and it struck me, hard, like a slap: Is this the ultimate goal?

Is that how you’re rewarded when you’ve finally “made it” as a blogger? To get to a place where so many people read you that there are bound to be several who hate you, and dedicate their entire lives to ripping you to shreds bit by bit? Are we all just wishing for traffic and comments and recognition without thinking about the consequences? I know it’s insane, but if I couldn’t tear my eyes away from that blog, how on earth could I possibly ignore any bad things that could be written about me? It doesn’t matter how big or small or in between this blog is, even one sharp sentence will slice me. I know it. And I’m terrified.

But look at me, I’m doing it anyway — and I guess that’s the difference between me today and me two days ago.

Like any good parent, I often wonder if I permanently damaged Gretta that day in the pool. I can still see her face, wet, shiny, open to me, open to the world, plastered with a smile that threatened to split her face apart. The subtle ways it morphed from joy to terror and back to joy again, over and over as we tossed her into the air. The weightless nanoseconds before she came back down, time suspended. How she looked when I betrayed her trust.

She was sitting in one of those flotation devices for babies, shaped like a turtle or a dragon or something, and there were two of us, two adults, a friend and I, one on each side, protective, fun, and it was a game, and she was safe, we’re here, don’t worry! We kept shouting, laughing along with her, until one throw was too high, and out she slipped, and down she plunged, and for several terrifying seconds I waded through molasses to get to her, to pull my baby from the three-foot depths. We climbed out of the pool and clung to its edge, shaken, changed, maybe forever, maybe for a minute, I don’t know. We sunk into each other, into the pavement, the grainy poolside putty leaving a pocked impression upon the backs of my thighs, the experience itself leaving one more nebulous. I wanted to wrap her in a towel and get her out of there, run till my legs gave out, but something bigger than me told me what I had to do, even if it was on auto-pilot. That if we hid from this fear, any fear — hers more primal, mine laden with knowledge and worry and experience — it might be crippling.

That is why, after some cuddling and hushing and sweet, slow rocking, without knowing exactly what we were doing or what would come of it, we slipped back into the water.

*****

This post was inspired by my dear friend Katie’s post today, about getting back on the horse (literally). I started to write a book in her comment section and then decided to come over here, instead. I’d forgotten about this experience until I read her words.

Gretta stayed home sick from school today. At 6:30am her hacking cough was very convincing, but about an hour after the bus roared past our driveway she speedily made a miraculous recovery. I spent the rest of the day torn between a desire to take her seriously, and the familiar dizzying sensation of falling through the looking glass once again.

I don’t know what it was about third grade that triggered it, but it was like I’d been shoved into a cannon and shot to Depression Island; I was suddenly, inescapably, miserable. My only respite was the school nurse and her blessed cot, tucked away in a forgotten room with nothing but the humming florescent lights and the steady drip from an umber stain on the ceiling tiles to witness my inadequacy. I would lie there counting those tiles over and over again until the fluttering in my ears was silenced, until the stampede in my heart died down.

In junior high I traded in the nurse’s cot for my basement bedroom and a well-worn deck of Solitaire cards, and in high school it morphed into a sky blue Plymouth Horizon. I was always looking for reasons to avoid school, despite my honors grade point and no shortage of friends. Sophomore year I racked up 54 absences. Depression and isolation fanned the loneliness in my heart until it burned a hot white anger.

One night driving the Plymie to Mock Trial practice I came upon my dumbass boyfriend pulled over on the side of the road. He’d been waiting for me next to a farmer’s barbed wire fence, waiting for me to bear witness before using it to cut up his arms, in some act of protest to whatever way I’d injured his cowardly soul that day. He was a perfect parallel to my life of pain back then, and I wore him like a cloak until Dave yanked him off. To this day I don’t know how Dave could have liked what he saw at that time, a girl bitter and blackened and twisted, but that’s not for me to dissect anymore. And I digress.

So I didn’t go to Mock Trial that night, and I remember the relief rushing sickly sweet through me like heroin. I welcomed the excuse — any excuse — to avoid school. My friends saw it as choosing boys over academia, over them, but I would have done it anyway. I would have found something.

Is this what’s going on with Gretta now? The relentless headaches, the constant stomachaches… or is she actually sick? I’ve tried every trick I know to get her to talk, to no avail. All I can think is if it’s this hard to reach her now, now at an age when she still seeks my body out for comfort, still leans into my embraces rather than pulls away, how the hell will I reach her in a few years?

I do not wish to project myself upon her. I don’t mean to see things that are not there. But if you’re wondering, yes — she’s exactly like me in so many ways it’s frightening. If this really is what’s going on with her, it’s not a surprising development.

When I steal glances at Gretta lying on her sick bed I can’t help but see my ghost. My only hope lies in knowing my old enemy inside and out, and that this knowledge will give me the strength I need to exorcise it once again.

Every year I sit down and bang out a holiday card letter. This kind of writing has always come easily to me, the unfettered, unedited free-form riffs I use to keep family and friends updated. I’ve been writing these missives for years and years, and I’ve always looked forward to it. But here we are, three days before Christmas and a day into Hanukkah, and up until an hour ago I hadn’t written a word. I couldn’t.

I have always tried to be honest in my holiday letters. The tradition was born in part from a desire to combat the stereotypical update letter, the happy-go-lucky aren’t-we-fantastic-world-travelers-and-could-our-children-possibly-excel-more-can-you-believe-they’re-not-President-or-American-Idols-yet? letters that make me feel two feet tall. It started when I was a kid, in response to one particular family’s over-the-top letter. I used to write satirical updates on my and my siblings’ failing grades, arrest records, or forays into drugs, just to make my parents smile. As an adult, I kept the tradition and the sentiment but added in truth. I felt like my loved ones would appreciate knowing how un-perfect my life was, that they’d perhaps feel better about how un-perfect theirs were, how un-perfect all of ours are. Because oh, how they are.

The last week or two my laptop has served more often as drink coaster than holiday-card writer, or blog entry portal, or social media connector, or anything responsibility-meeting in general. I can’t seem to do it. I can’t seem to sit down here and tell you about the awesome Christmas party in Chicago, or game nights with my kids, or my visiting house guests, or the extreme snowfalls and frigid below-zero days…. and for the life of me, I can’t seem to sit down and type out an honest summary of the last year because I don’t want to Grinch-out 127 people’s holidays with my card. Because I’m just not feeling it.

I am blessed. I know I am blessed. I have experienced more joy than I could ever document this year, I have. But.

I’m worried about Dave’s job loss, even though he’s not. I’m worried sick about our cousin’s paralysis. I’m not interested in cataloging marriages and divorces, middle-of-the-night agonies and loved ones buried, and wrapping it all into a cute little holiday card bow.

My visiting brother and sister-in-law took Emma to lunch this afternoon and told me to sit down and write the cheery letter already, dammit! So I did. I finished it five minutes ago. I hope it doesn’t let anyone down.

I closed out the letter with the most truthful line I could muster, and I’ll use it to close out this post, too.

I pray all is equal parts sweet and survivable with you and yours.

Happy Holidays.