a corner turned

I turned to my friend the other night as we were chatting and confessed that I'd lost my groove, that something had fallen off the rails somehow and I needed to get back on track.  It wasn't until the words were out of my mouth that I realized both that I had lost my groove AND that I was beginning to find it again.  In the mucky midst of it, I wasn't really aware of how lost and off track I was.  I've read confessional posts around the interweb about sadness, about mourning, about loss, even about depression.  And I always identify somewhat, but with some distance.  Very important and necessary distance.
See, if you have a parent that struggled with depression and then ended their life, it's pretty hard to ever imagine yourself as struggling with sadness or grief.  If you're me, you just keep spinning positive and smiling and hanging in, finding the good and the lesson in everything. It's an essential to survival, this spinning positive.  Plus,  we're supposed to do that as good Christian folk anyway.  It's in the manual.
Some of my fellow students were talking about a counselling class I missed, where they learned about 'stackable losses'.  As they described this idea that was completely new to me, I identified a lot with the concept.  Basically, when we have multiple consecutive or concurrent losses, we are unable to respond to additional losses.  Our coping ability diminishes as losses increase.  I heard my friends talking, but I immediately saw in my mind a picture of our little garden at Flats.  
A few of us were going to work on the garden together, but the plan didn't come together as hoped.  I did my best on my own with it until we were away in July.  When we got back from San Francisco, the garden was pretty overgrown.  I weeded and watered, but it didn't seem to be enough.  Then we had 3 days of blistering heat.  I went out on the first two days and watered my little garden, but by the third day the wilting and sad plants actually brought tears to my eyes.  I turned around, locked the gate and didn't venture back into the garden again.  Even though the greenspace materialized over the next few weeks and became a beautiful place that I'd been dreaming of and waiting for, I stayed away.
Stackable losses - pile them up on top of each other and you end up with very little room at the top to deal with dying plants that friends forgot to water.  
So, how do you make more room, or get back to who or where you were before the losses started to pile up?  I dunno, my classmates left out that part!  
But just realizing that I'd had losses, and that they had stacked up very high has helped me find my lost groove and turn a corner. 
 I managed to form the question 'could I be depressed?' at a recent visit to the doctor. She looked at me in her kind and knowledgeable way (only a woman who has witnessed and helped me to give birth could have such a compassionate look!) and said "I don't think so.  You're life is full of things most of us insulate ourselves from.  You've taken on a lot and its not cheap.  I know you have good strategies.  Some times will be harder than others, and it looks to me like you're gonna be just fine."
Like a good doctor, she said we'll keep our eye on it and monitor frequently.  And because she is so aware of my family history, she has never missed a chance to say 'How are you REALLY doing?'  
Since learning about stackable losses, I've named some huge losses in my life over the last few years.  I've even painted them on a canvas!  I'm disciplining myself NOT to think about the lessons and gains just yet, to actually allow myself to count losses for what they are.  

  Tune me in to foot-tapping songs, 

      set these once-broken bones to dancing. 

   Don't look too close for blemishes, 

      give me a clean bill of health. 

   God, make a fresh start in me, 

      shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life. 

   Don't throw me out with the trash, 

      or fail to breathe holiness in me. 

   Bring me back from gray exile, 

      put a fresh wind in my sails! 

   Give me a job teaching rebels your ways 

      so the lost can find their way home. 

   Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God, 

      and I'll sing anthems to your life-giving ways. 

   Unbutton my lips, dear God; 

      I'll let loose with your praise. 

  Going through the motions doesn't please you, 

      a flawless performance is nothing to you. 

   I learned God-worship 

      when my pride was shattered. 

   Heart-shattered lives ready for love 

      don't for a moment escape God's notice. 

from psalm 51 - the message