Autobiography

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Ruby Pipes14 Comments

October 2015.
October 2015.
It’s our last day in Seattle. Tomorrow morning we head south. I feel like I should deliver a eulogy to our time here. The city we first made our home, the apartments we shared, the streets we learned together. But just like any other time I’ve wanted to stand up at a funeral, the words just won’t come.

We awkwardly balance the heartbreak of leaving, of having known this city so intimately, with the excitement of what’s next. Try to hold close the memories, the leftovers, the echoes of these years. Over coffee Mason and I talk about all the things living in a smaller town will allow us to do. I imagine a small community, an apartment big enough for two offices, trees, space to breathe. The settling that can happen when your world is not so loud. He reaches under the table and laces his fingers in with mine, squeezing tight.

At night I stare at all the things we still need to pack. I think of the therapist I’ve been seeing for two years and my best friend. All the people I’ve met here flash through my head and I struggle to keep composure. I hold the heartbreak of leaving close to the love of forward motion. I try to imagine them as two parts of a multi-facetted piece of me. It is not all joy or sadness, it is too many feelings to go on listing. My mind pulls in several directions. My heart in as many. Straining across ventricles, a sharp ache and electric excitement fight for dominance, but neither are winning.

This hurts. This is thrilling.

Autobiography · Personal Development

Sine

Ruby Pipes18 Comments
October 2015.

They say to find your edge and hold it. Adjust to the water one half inch of skin at a time. It’s all about sustainability, finding a pace you can maintain for the long haul. Slow progress. Nothing spectacular. Just figure out little tasks you can do every day and then, after a couple years, look back and see how far you’ve come. But I am a bullet. An avalanche. I plow through with huge intentions and then splatter against the wall. I am a sine wave, all ups and downs.

I gently seek out my limit, toeing forward in the dark, arms outstretched. My fingertips find a concrete wall and fumble around for points of weakness. Where is there room to push through? And then I pummel until I reach exhaustion. Collapse into a heap. Get up again. Repeat. Logically, I know there must be a better way to achieve. I should chip away at it slowly. Be patient. Practice. They tell me this is how people burn out, wear down, give up and I know it’s true. I charge forward and then hurdle back. Have to fight twice as hard to gain a quarter of the distance. But I don’t know how to exist peacefully. I am all extremes.

When we first met he called me “wildfire”. Fierce and raging, unpredictable. He had me pegged within a week of exchanging messages. Knew I would throw back my head and cackle at the thought of hesitation. Deal with the fall out later. I wore the statement like a badge of honor. Wanted nothing more than to live the rest of my life aflame. But I’ve begun to wonder when I will be only scorched earth. What will grow after? Anything?

Autobiography · Mental Health

Depression, An Explanation

Ruby Pipes24 Comments

“flock” © Stefan Powell, 2006. CC BY 2.0.
At breakfast, bright notes of lemon and dill dance across my tongue in a decadent hollandaise. My coffee is a full-bodied mug of caramel. The linen of my freshly-bleached napkin is soft and tender as it kisses the skin poking out from underneath the edge of my dress. Silverware catches the light, shimmering unapologetic up at me and I use it to cut through layers of poached egg, cured meat, and English muffin. Each ingredient marries the next. Ice clinks in glasses, the murmur of the cafe rises and falls like waves lapping the beach. Nobody shares my booth and I bask in the solitude of morning. But I am wearing gloves. Covered in plastic wrap. I am trapped inside a bubble, twice removed.

I leave the restaurant and put my headphones in. Turn the music up loud and the melody climbs down my spine, cradling my bones. The bass moves my legs and I fall in step with it. But the sound remains muffled, like listening to it through a tunnel. No matter how much I increase the volume, it can’t get through the glass I’m standing under.

On my walk I touch every piece of plant matter I pass. I caress fresh leaves between finger tips, feel their veins pulsing. The fog collects on the collar of my jacket and shimmies down the back of my neck, cold and wet. I drag my fists along the concrete walls until my knuckles bloody, but my hands do not belong to me. Someone far away must be feeling these things.

At night my husband lays his head on the hollow of my chest where my shoulder and torso connect. My breath falls in rhythm with his slowly. Comfortable and quiet, almost nonexistent. His smell is safe and familiar, but distant. An old shirt he left here weeks ago, not him.

Floating on the ceiling, I watch us lying in bed. And I wonder if I’ll ever find my way back into that body again.