Joy is My Pizza

I just spent seven days eating no bread or pasta or stuff with wheat flour in it. Fortunately it wasn’t due to a short-term gluten allergy. It was a Passover thing, something Jewish law requires. When Passover ended, we celebrated in the way that also seems required by Jewish law. We ate pizza. Well Rafi and I did, my mom broke it by allowing croutons back on her salad. She’s a wild woman that way.

To see the look on my son’s face when he took that first bite of pizza, you would think we had starved him. He was ecstatic. Then I took a bite of my slice of bready, cheesy goodness, and I too was giddy. Just seven little days, but we Jews, we are a carb people. And I missed them.

In life right now, joy is my pizza and every day feels like the end of Passover. I wake up and feel”fuck yeah” as opposed to “Oh, fuck not another day.” and every morning I am surprised and delighted by it, ecstatic and giddy.

People often think the opposite of depression is happy. I find myself telling them “No, the opposite of depression is healthy,” but if I was going to associate it with an emotion, I would say the opposite of depression is joy.

When stuff was at it’s worst, I still was able to have happy moments, watching my son be silly, performing a fun night of improv. I was able to smile, even have a good time now and then. I was able to have moments of happy but I never had joy. Joy stays with you. You can be joyous and still feel sad because joy isn’t a feeling as much as it is a state of being. When depressed, joy is impossible to access, depression takes over and you are not able to have joy.

And this is how I know I am no longer depressed. I am filled with joy. And I couldn’t be more grateful and aware of how fortunate I am.

On Passover, when I start feeling like, damn I wish I could eat some bread, I try and remind myself that some people have nothing to eat. That this is seven little days in my life. I will be honest, sometimes, I just bitch and moan, but I try to remember how lucky I am.

The same is true when sadness comes now. I try and remember that it is only sadness, that I am still able to access joy, (though other times I’m sure I just bitch and moan.)

I know there is a chance this joy won’t last , but just like I don’t spend all year thinking about what I can’t eat on Passover, I am not going to spend each day preparing for the depression to return.

Joy is my pizza and I am going to taste the ever living fuck out of it.

Let’s Talk

An article was in the New York Times, the media source I feel the smartest when quoting, (though I will quote E! News with little shame.) The article was titled Suicide Prevention Sheds a Longstanding Taboo: Talking About Attempts and ended with this paragraph:

“We as a field need to hear these stories,” said John Draper, director of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, “and not just to study them but to ask how they found a way to cope and connect: What did family and friends and doctors do that helped, and what did not?”

I read that paragraph and had two thoughts.
1 – Right on!
2 – Isn’t John Draper the character from Mad Men? Wait no, that’s Don Draper. Ooh,  they should do a TV show that took place at a suicide hotline and the main guy was John Draper. It could also be called Mad Men.

I have talked/written about how I tried to kill myself right before I graduated college, about that day, but not why I went through with trying to end my life. I don’t know that I’ve ever thought about why I didn’t stop myself that day, but in a lot of ways it is simple.

It all comes down to this: I went through with trying to end my life because when I felt suicidal I reached out to no one.

How do we help prevent people from committing suicide? We let them know they need to reach out, with what little they have left, they need to call someone, and it doesn’t have to just be a hotline. It can be your best friend, or your parent, or a mentor. You can call those people because you have nothing to be embarrassed about because you are not alone. You are not the first person to want to end your life and there are people who can tell you about how they too wanted to die and how they attempted to end their lives and it will not give you ideas or make you more likely to kill yourself. It will let you know that you are not alone. And knowing that can save you.

Almost 15 years ago when I was a few days from college graduation, I got this feeling, a feeling that had been in me for months but all of the sudden felt like the truest thing ever; I felt that I would not be able to survive in the real world, that I didn’t have the skills to live as an adult, that I was not smart enough, or independent enough, or strong enough to live a post-college life. It all hit me so hard and felt so true and it seemed like the only solution was to kill myself.

So without telling anyone, I left my class and got in my car and drove and just sat on a street called Grandview Drive, all alone, feeling despair and shame, and done with. I never thought to reach out because I felt if I was having these thoughts that was just more reason I should end it all. Me thinking this way, was just more proof to me I wouldn’t be able to last in this world.

If only I knew others had been at this point in their lives. If only I believed feeling what I felt didn’t mean I was worthless. If only I felt I could call one of the many people who, in an instant, would have helped me.

Luckily, I was unsuccessful at killing myself

And maybe if we know sharing stories like this is okay, when it comes to others not committing suicide, we won’t have to bank on luck.

The Best Discussions Happen in Star Wars PJs

Unless you count April Fool’s Day, Passover will be the first major holiday since our separation, where the three of us are not together.

Rafi and Leon will be going to Leon’s brother’s house for the Seders. While I will of course miss Rafi (and Leon too and Leon’s family,) I understood this would be a consequence of the split. I am very happy for them that they are going as Rafi is so, so excited, and I am sure Leon is too.

As I laid in his bed with Rafi last night, both of us in Star Wars pajamas, listening to the Phineas and Ferb soundtrack and rubbing his back as he tried to fall asleep, he said how he can’t wait for the trip. We talked about him seeing his cousins, who he looks up too and loves so much. He mentioned he was excited to see his Aunt and his Uncle, also known as Uncle Monkey.

He then asked if I was going. I said no and he had a look on his face and we talked about if he was sad or if it felt weird. He said it felt weird and then paused and said “Actually it doesn’t because once you left me there and Zaide (his grandpa) brought me back.”

And I said “Yes, I was sick and had to go to the hospital” and Rafi nodded.

This was two and a half years ago when Leon took me to the psych hospital, an adventure that wound up taking two days because of a closed highway. Oh, the humor of experiencing suicidal depression and traffic delays all in one night.

Rafi said “Because of your eyes, right?” (I have a weird eye condition, which in the scheme of life, is no big deal at all, but Rafi is much more aware of it then my depression.)

And I said well actually because of my brain.

And that was how Rafi and I had our first discussion about depression.

I said to him that my brain was sick then because I have something called depression which can make me really, really (a fuck ton more reallys) sad if my medicine isn’t working, so I went to the hospital to get medicine that worked and I am healthy now and I make sure to get checkups, and I am not sad.

And the whole time I said this I wondered if what I was saying was wrong, or too much, or if in these 2 minutes I would scar him and make him think mommy’s got a sad disease, that’s scary.

But because he is seven and his world is a lot more logical than an adult’s, he got it, and he wasn’t scared. For him it was the same as talking about any other condition, like my weird eyes.

So this year, I will be in Cleveland and he will be in Pennsylvania, and I will know he is happy and having fun and surrounded by love, and as we say on Passover:

Dayenu – that will be enough.