Hello Darkness My Old Friend

Recently, Laurel and I found a show on the BBC, called Detectorists. It’s about two guys, Andy and Lance, who spend a great deal of their time with metal detectors, searching for treasure in the fields, and all of the strange cast of characters around them. It is slow, the humor is very subtle, but we fell in love with it, the characters are just so quirky and interesting. Andy and Lance have a couple of bitter rivals that they call Simon and Garfunkel, because the two look so much like Simon and Garfunkel. Throughout the show, there will be these little vignettes of Simon and Garfunkel songs that unless you listen carefully, you miss. Toward the end of the series, Simon and Garfunkel hit it big, and they came pulling up to the fields in a chauffeur-driven black SUV. As they get out of the vehicle, and I didn’t even catch it, Laurel did, a melody played, “The Sound of Silence”. Yes. As usual. I digress. 

I’ve plunged. Not nearly as deep, I’m sure, as I plunged a few years ago which led me to desperately search the Yellow Pages (OK, Google) and miraculously find Hailey. But I plunged. I was sad, angry, irritable, I couldn’t find any joy in anything, even yoga, I just was miserable. Where it hit its low point was the one night, Laurel lit into me. Now, there may be many times that Laurel gets angry with me, but it’s not often that she visibly gets angry with me. There was no doubt. I remember back when we had Snickers, he was our first dog, and he loved Laurel. She rarely got angry with him, but when she did, he would sink as low as he possibly could on the ground, and beg forgiveness. That was how I felt, I must have really screwed up to incur her wrath. I woke up the next morning anticipating the silent treatment, but thankfully, she’s not like me, she gets over these types of situations much better than I do.

 It's a Sad Man My Friend Who’s Living In His Own Skin and Can’t Stand the Company 

I had been difficult with her, I had been difficult with Little Bit and Daisy, and quite frankly, if I can’t be nice to the most important people in my immediate life, well, there’s only one conclusion I could draw…. 

You’re such an asshole Steve! 

For those of you who know me, I unfortunately am not the kindest person to myself, I often berate myself with derisive phrases such as “You’re such an idiot!” or “How could you be so stupid!” OK, not good, I know that, but for me, it may be subtle, but I tend to believe calling myself an asshole is much worse, and it became a regular occurrence. Any misstep, and the A word would fly. 

I finally decided I needed to figure out what went wrong, why I so badly needed a reset. Some of the answers came easily: 

I haven’t met with Hailey since November: I’ve seen various therapists over my adult life, but none came close to Hailey. She somehow always seemed to know when I needed grace, when I needed a nudge, when I needed a dirty look for a stupid comment, she knew me better than anyone, and she knew how to help me navigate through the dark moments. She gave me great coping skills, and ways to deal with my depression, and I can’t thank her enough. We separated, at some point, it’s inevitable to separate from your therapist, but it hasn’t been easy. I really miss her. 

Midterm of the semester: I seem to remember this from my first semester, things go haywire for me about this time. As I’ve shared before, my organizational skills are really poor. When I interviewed with WIKA many years ago, they conduct a personality test, and for organizational skills, I scored a 1 out of 10. No, that’s not good. When things get too busy, when I have too much going on, my brain turns to chaos, and I start making mistakes. Hence, the use of the I word, which has now become the A word. 

I set my sights too high: My heroes are Jesus, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mr. Rogers. Of course, I know I could never be the Son of God, or one of the greatest leaders the world has ever seen, but I could be more like Mr. Rogers…. No. If you’ve read his story, Mr. Rogers was an amazing human being. No chance. 

I’ve had so much great training: I completed my Yoga Teacher Training about two years ago, and I’ve read so many great authors over the last several years. Stephen Cope has taught me how to find my dharma, Michael Singer has taught me to live untethered, Jack Kornfield and Thich Nhat Hanh taught me to live in the present moment, Barbara Brown Taylor taught me to learn to walk in the dark, Brene Brown taught me to brave the wilderness, Valerie Kaur taught me to see no stranger, I should be so much further along than I am. 

And then reality set in once again. This is terminal. I know that. There is no cure for depression, there are coping mechanisms, there are ways to navigate the darkness, but there is no miraculous way to overcome it. It’s a journey, and sometimes the dark moments can be so difficult, but eventually they do pass. And, along the way, you do get to have some bright moments: 

Winnie the Pooh: My daughter-in-law Rachel sent me a link to a story that told of the real Winnie the Pooh. It was such a beautiful story, it made me cry, of course, but I loved it, and I really appreciated that she sent it to me. 

Mr. Rogers: My cousin Pam knows how much I love Mr. Rogers, and she sent me a link to a story about Mr. Rogers and Koko the gorilla. Yes, yet again, I cried, it was beautiful. 

Yoga Club: We’ve started yoga club at Ohio Dominican, and I have enjoyed teaching yoga so much to the students. I never thought I’d ever teach yoga, and I doubt I do it very much, but there is something about teaching a group of students, many of whom have little yoga experience, and they just enjoy the time together. I come out of those classes so incredibly happy. 

Still, I was struggling. And then, the lightbulb went off in my head. Back in June, one of my favorite pastors, Nadia Bolz-Weber, posted a blog titled “1% Less Asshole”. Her writing is always incredible, and it always gives me a new perspective. As she notes: 

“As I have said many times, it’s exhausting to continually feel convicted by the distance between my ideal self and my actual self. And the self that God is in relationship with, the self that God loves, is my actual self.” 

I’ve read this post several times, realizing that I set my goals way too high, as Nadia says, the goal should be to be 1% less asshole. But strangely, what really gave me hope and a better view of myself? 

“As you know if you’ve spent any time here with me, my first reaction to almost everything is “fuck you”. I almost never stay there…but honest to God, I almost always still start there. That’s progress. And I’m at a point in my life where I am ok with being a softer version of the same asshole I’ve always been and believing that maybe I can still change, even just 1%.” 

I don’t start there. I really don’t, it takes me a while to get to the point of wanting to say fuck you to anyone, and as strange as this may seem, I took a huge positive out of that. I still believe my goals were too high, and I need to go back to striving to be 1% less asshole, but maybe, just maybe, I’m not as big of an asshole as I give myself credit for. 

Laurel gave me a Valentine’s Day card that said on the front “I Love the Good Man You Are”. At first it really bothered me because that’s not who I am. While I usually just keep cards like this for a week or so, I’ve not gotten rid of it. I keep it on my desk, and I look at it every day. While I can’t ever figure out why, I truly believe that Laurel honestly believes what the card says, she sees a good man. Maybe someday, when I look in the mirror, I’ll see him too.