img_4103Today, after more than 2 years since my last blog entry, and without a topic in mind, I decided to write.  So like I always do when I’m getting ready to write, I procrastinated.

I created a 17-song playlist with the full intent of listening to it while laying on my back, right arm bent over my eyes, trying to sleep.  I was bored by the 3rd song, so I got up and  opened a bottle of a Chilean merlot a good friend gave me as a thank you gift, and poured myself a glass to enjoy while watching the ocean from my backyard.  When I returned inside, I opened a new document on my computer and saw a clean, white, empty page.  I didn’t like seeing that, so I glanced out the window just as Jerome, my tiny thing of a cat, jumped on my lap and made me look at her as she said, “You’re staying right here.”  I opened Safari, re-read a few of my old blog posts and eventually messaged my cousin in Louisiana via Facebook, but she didn’t answer.  I tried, unsuccessfully, to watch SNL’s comedic version of the 2nd 2016 Presidential Debate.  I sat there, defeated, without a lasting distraction and more importantly, without a topic.

With a second glass of wine to my right and that clean, white empty page I mentioned earlier in front, I looked out the dining room window, watched the energy surging throughout the white-capped royal blue waves, and thought.

I thought about Fred’s and my attempt to have a second child.

I thought about the process of building a new house in Nicaragua, our horses being held for ransom, my failed attempts at learning how to surf, discovering yoga, and our ongoing (and frustrating) clean water project.

I thought about sharing our home schooling experience, but that would just be one long piece of expletives.

I wanted to write about something current, so I contemplated writing about our divorce which will become final any day now.  But that wasn’t the topic I wanted to use to reintroduce myself to writing.

While I could convert any of these memory-worthy stories into words on paper, none of them grabbed me with enough interest to keep me seated for a few hours.

So I thought about why I stopped writing.  I reflected on the theme of my life in its current state, and how a close friend insists I should name my new home La Segunda Vida.  The Second Life.

And I had my topic.

This piece begins in July 2012.  I was almost 10 weeks pregnant with a child I had wanted for roughly 5 years.  Fred decided we would have no more children when Eliana was 2 years old and it took me years to come to peace with that.  Fred was now thinking he wanted another child and he wanted to know if I would consider.  I didn’t know, however, if wanted to open myself back up to the vulnerability wanting a child again if the dream did not become a reality.

There is a lot to this story that I won’t go into here, but the important part to know is that we got pregnant easily.  At 10 weeks I went into a routine doctor’s visit in Managua while Fred was working in the states.  The doctor turned on the ultrasound machine, put clear gel on my belly, pressed the wand to my body, and started looking at the monitor to my left.  He then stopped talking, changed the angle slightly while pressing firmer, and looked intensely at the screen.   “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” I asked him.  “Well…yes…”  I looked over and saw that the heart had stopped beating.

Before getting pregnant with Eliana, I miscarried at 7 weeks and I cried.  A lot.  Eleven months later Eliana was born, and I realized that I could not have had both babies, and having Eliana was incredible.  She was unquestionably perfect.  I mean she didn’t look at all like me, and she refused to nurse, but other than that, she was without a doubt the most beautiful being in my world and I loved her instantly with my entire existence.  So while in this moment at the doctor’s office I couldn’t believe it was happening again, and I later cried, I believed that the child for me to love would come, it just wasn’t coming now.

But this story is not about letting go of the dream of a child.

The following week Eliana was in a car accident and she suffered from repeated nightmares in which she watched herself die and rise as a ghost into heaven (see Sorry She’s Late).  She slept next to me in my bed and I didn’t sleep through the night for weeks.  I woke up every couple of hours to make sure she was still breathing.  And kiss her.  And smell her.  And kiss her again.

Four days later she had a growing wound on her chin that I worried would spread to her entire face (see The Maya).  Life was getting stressful.

For the next two years Fred and I attempted to get pregnant but the baby never came.  I experienced again the agony of yearning for a child I could not have.  Our marriage was struggling.  And I felt alone.

I was never hungry and rarely full. I ate when others ate and stopped when they stopped.  I had difficulty falling asleep so I would stay awake until my eyes hurt and my head pounded, until my body collapsed.  In the morning, feeling tired, I wanted the day to end quickly so I could go back to sleep.  My personality was flat, my short term memory was almost nonexistent, and I suddenly needed reading glasses.  I could not multi-task to save my life nor deal with being interrupted or frustrated.  I lost the motivation to exercise.  I felt uninteresting and ugly.  I didn’t want to socialize, and I was most definitely sick and tired of people telling me how much Eliana needed a sibling, or asking me if we had always planned to have only one child.

It wasn’t until October 2014 when I realized I was depressed, and in that moment of clarity I could not get myself help fast enough.  Fred said the marriage was over and I thought, “I’m depressed.”  As soon as our painful conversation ended, I was on the phone seeking help.

In hindsight I can see that I was depressed before 2012.  Before trying to get pregnant a second time, before moving to Nicaragua, before having Eliana.

When we began trying to get pregnant in 2012 though, in conjunction with the other successive events, hormone treatments, and doctors saying month after month that they couldn’t figure out why we couldn’t get pregnant, my depression magnified.  Life finally got too difficult for me to manage and I got pushed to a breaking point.  But instead of breaking, I got help.

My journey out of depression came with medicine, therapy, massage, friends, family, exercise, community service, and both the freedom and opportunity to remember who I am.

Now, before anyone says I could have worked through my depression without medicine, perhaps just by exercising, spending more time in nature, eating healthier, limiting caffeine, not drinking, exposing myself to sunlight, figuring out what was making me depressed, or whatever recently trending article says I should have done, I want to clarify a few things.

I was a competitive cyclist for 6 of these years.  I earned several district titles, one national title, and I competed in the 2004 US Olympic Road Race trials.  I didn’t drink alcohol, I went years without coffee, I was outside, I swam, I hiked, I was fit and healthy, and I later moved to a country in which it is impossible to avoid the sun.

Diet wasn’t my problem.  Lack of exercise, time in nature, and Vitamin D weren’t my problems.  I didn’t drink alcohol or caffein.  Figure out why I was depressed, well, that’s a funny one, because when you’re depressed the unhappiness and aloneness make no sense whatsoever.  And you likely don’t even realize you are depressed.

Up until this point in my life, I functioned so well that no one saw it, not my parents who are familiar with the signs of depression, not colleagues, not friends who had known me for decades, nor my doctors who saw me several times a month.  I didn’t even see it.  A person with depression can be good at making life appear normal, perhaps a bit more difficult than necessary, but normal.  It can be easy to attribute signs of depression to something else.  Something temporary, perhaps a stress that will pass.

I think we, as a society, need to be incredibly careful about what we decide depression looks like and what we proclaim to others will end it.  Unless you have been depressed, you really cannot speak to what it feels like or how easy it should be to take one’s self out of it.  Depression is a private experience, it varies with each person, and leaving it behind requires dedicated work, regardless of the path you take.

I am grateful for friends and family who could see me when I could not see myself, for those who encouraged me to continue my private journey, beautiful souls who stood by me in more profound ways than I ever imagined I would experience.

Some of you know who you are, others may not be so sure.  But if I’ve told you I love you or that I am grateful that you are in my life, then you are definitely one of them.  From the bottom of my heart, with my entire existence, I will say it here publicly to all of you who have helped me make my life beautiful again.

I am full of gratitude that you are part of my life.  And I love you.  Los quiero.