Beyond Blue

Our Christmas tree is now on the curb with the rest of the 33 million trees Americans bought this year (according to the National Christmas Tree Association). I’m feeling guilty of course (don’t all depressives?) for not being a better steward of the earth, but the evergreen is such a lovely and expressive symbol for me at this time of year, that I couldn’t imagine our home without one.

Deep in the belly of winter’s death, the evergreen cries out with a voice of hope, continuity, and stability. Just as my moods are like the winter wind–crazy and unpredictable–God is like the evergreen: forever alive and constant, beautiful and dependable. Sometimes on dreary January or February days, I’ll sit at the back window of our house with a cup of coffee and gaze at the five evergreens that line our back fence. To me, they say something similar to this poem written by Teresa of Avila:

“Let nothing disturb you;
Let nothing make you afraid;
All things pass;
But God is unchanging,
Patience is enough for everything.
You who have God lack nothing.
God alone is sufficient.”

Now that the Santas and stockings have disappeared to the North Pole along with the holly-jolly tunes and the Salvation Army bells, commercial-savvy marketers reach out in desperation for some holiday or other excuse to make us buy, buy, buy. And so out come the hearts heralding Cupid’s arrival on an arrow next month.

A heart is a good symbol to have hanging around the drug store (that I visit every other day for refills and vitamins and candy to bribe the kids with) and the mall (which I have avoided since before Thanksgiving) because, according to Mother Teresa, holiness starts with a pure heart.

In her book of reflections with Brother Roger of Taize, “Seeking the Heart of God,” Mother Teresa writes this about the heart:

“To be able to pray we need a pure heart. With a pure heart we can see God.

Prayer gives us a clean heart and that’s the beginning of holiness. Holiness is not a luxury of the few; it is a simple duty for you and for me.

Where does holiness begin? In our own hearts. That’s why we need that continual prayer–to keep our hearts clean, for the clean heart becomes the tabernacle of the living God.”

One of my all time favorite quotes is from Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s “The Little Prince“: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

I’m always telling David and Katherine to use their words (instead of whining and screaming), but I’m often afraid to use them myself. Unlike Eric, who vocalizes a resentment before it’s had time to fester and start a family, I hate confrontation so much that I’ll befriend the resentment–dress it up, take it out on the town, hang out with it for years–anything to avoid conflict.

On some level, I fear that any conversation of substance will end the same way as the one I had with my dad almost two decades ago–when I conjured up the courage to tell him how hurt I was that he missed my high school graduation. (He was golfing.)

He responded defensively. “Of all the things I’ve done for you,” he said, “you have to concentrate on that?”

I tried one more time, a year later, to tell him I wanted a better relationship with him. Newly sober, I was struggling with all the drinking in our family.

“Dad,” I asked, “would it be possible for you not to drink around me?”

He followed through–by excluding me from family trips, where my sisters and he bar-hopped all night.

If I were an emotionally healthy, chemically-balanced woman, I might have let go of my hurt long ago. I certainly should have cremated it with my father’s body when he died. But I’m an extraordinarily sensitive manic depressive with an excellent memory and a hearty menu of issues.

Part of my recovery has been to not look back so often, and to become more assertive in communicating my feelings because depression is anger turned inward (at least at some level).

It’s not easy. Because when you use your words, you learn a lot about a person and his priorities–you invite responses that are downright ugly and difficult to hear.

But silence isn’t the solution–not if you want to keep your cortisol (the stress hormone) levels low. The trick is using your words with absolutely no expectation of what kind of response you’ll get (yeah right). You say them for the sake of expressing them, not for anything you hope to hear. If that’s at all possible.