I didn't know it was so bad...

Depression is some sneaky ass shit. It wears socks and walks on tip toes, creeping up from behind. The weight of it descends gradually, ounce by ounce, so I don’t notice it hitching a ride. I’m trudging along, slowed and stymied by it, but it all happens so gradually that I don’t notice the extra weight. One day to the next, it feels normal. I lose all perspective, lose track of the fact that all I feel like is shit and it never used to be this way. 

It’s all in my head, anyway. Literally. All. In my head. It’s not like when you break your leg and have to walk on crutches. Then everyone can see your handicap, why it’s been several days since you showered, or why you haven’t left your house in over a week. But when that handicap is the fucked up chemicals in your brain, it doesn’t look or feel like anything should keep you from living your life.

Then there’s a day when I screw up every ounce of oomph and caring I have and pour it into the space inside my brain that controls things like hygiene and leaving the house. That’s the day you see me. It’s the best that things are going to get, the best that I am going to get. I wouldn’t make it out of the house if I didn’t find the part of me that cares about something—you. I’m surprised to find I care about much these days.

Yet, as you sit across from me and tell me about your life, I can’t care about it much at all. I’m running low to empty on cares, all used up in the getting here. I’m already looking forward to going home, to sinking into the sofa and not working so hard. When you tell me your tales, I work to put on the right faces, say the right things, sound the right way. I feel like an alien in my own skin, trying to approximate myself. This face means sad. This one, thoughtful. This one, happy. 

You are my friend. I want to please you.

What’s new with me, you ask? That’s the thing. Nothing’s new. Nothing. I spent my week watching episode after episode of a stupid show on Netflix, caring but not caring. Numb to the world around me, to my own feelings threatening to overwhelm me. 

Misdirection is the best tool of a magician. I’ll use it to distract, deflect attention from what’s really going on, a dark secret that I don’t really want to admit or address. If I don’t look at it, maybe it’ll go away, maybe it didn’t happen, maybe it’s not true. I’ll tell you that I feel numb and wonder what the point is in getting out of bed in the morning, but all in a perfunctory sort of way. 

Quick! Look over here, where I’ve prepared a few anecdotes that the real Megan would have found funny. So I, Not-Megan, tell them to you, move the conversation forward and away. 

Blink and you’ll miss it. 

I feel like I’m faking it. I am fake. So I feel shitty. I am shitty. I judge myself. All of it makes me feel worse than I started out this morning. So exhausting.

I think I need some down time to recover. How many seasons are left in that stupid show?

All the pieces, All one piece

Over the years, I've set aside virtual space for each interest, each facet of my personality: roller derby, nutrition and fitness, quilting and artistic endeavors, the humorous ups and downs of married life. I sorted and segregated interests for anyone who may stumble upon them. Each facet of myself that I offered was only as valuable as those who found it interesting. Dividing and distributing myself into these packets only served to diminish the whole. My interests defined me. I was an artist. No, I was one of those weight-loss nuts. No, I was a wife with funny marriage stories. No, I was a roller derby girl.

Stretching back to life before the internet (that's right, kids), I realize I compartmentalized my life as long as I can remember. Is it because I like things to fit into categories? Is it like how I organized our takeout menus into a tabbed binder? Divide the parts and pieces of me and they'll all make sense eventually?

And what of those parts of me that don't fit neatly into a category? Like what it's like to swim through depression, losing yourself and making your way back. How dreams have changed, and what triumphs lie outside well-defined categories. How, through all of these things, I feel the most myself when I'm writing, yet struggle to sit down and do just that. Is any of that less a part of who I am? Where does all of that belong on the Megan binder?

The reality is, I don't belong in a binder. What I do is not who I am. I am all of these things. I am none of them. I am a woman. A lover. A friend. Someone who exhibits passion and intelligence and creativity. The time has come to stop the compartmentalization. Time for these parts of me to mingle. Time to find the spaces in between. Time to let the writing flow as it will, less defined by the space where it appears than the way it is born.

Priorities

Three years ago, my husband and I joined the YMCA. At the time, my main concerns were losing weight and avoiding the sorts of major diseases that run rampant in my family: diabetes, heart disease, cancer.

I began working out in earnest and using an online program to track my calories in and calories out. This basic formula consumed many of my thoughts and informed just about every decision. I’m tired; can I skip the gym tonight? Check the calorie balance sheet to see if you came out ahead today. I want to have this treat someone brought to work. Check to see if you worked out hard enough to offset that treat. Translation: did I deserve a break? What had I done to earn it?

Following this regimen, I lost weight. And I gained confidence to try new things, like when my friend asked me to join her at the roller rink. I began taking classes at the roller rink, and then with Derby Lite. I lost more weight. I got stronger. And I found a form of exercise that went beyond personal satisfaction and improving myself. Somehow, I had stumbled upon exercise that was fun. Now, here I am: still a member at the Y, but now, a skater for The Chicago Outfit. And those Derby Lite classes I once took? Now I teach them. Me. I teach fitness.

And I’m still overweight.

Over these three years, life happened. I lost a close family member. I was injured and recovered. I was injured again, and recovered again. I’ve gone through a major life change and struggle with depression. I put on muscle and lost fat. Put on fat and lost muscle. I fell off the wagon and clawed my way back on, again and again. Every time, derby was there, waiting for me.

Never before in my life have I maintained a relationship with exercise and nutrition. Any other time I started a workout regimen, boredom or life change or discouragement at a plateau eventually set in, and the gym and I parted ways. It’s not you, it’s me. Life would reset back to sedentary activities, eating what I wanted, and a bigger pair of pants.

But now, when life intervenes and I find myself drifting away from the gym and good nutrition, derby beckons. I’m eager to get back to it. I’m no longer going to the gym and eating well to lose weight. My primary motivation is to get stronger for the things I want to be able to do on the derby track.

I don’t want to eat the “right” foods so I can slim down. I want to eat the foods that will give me the fuel I need for my body to perform all the tasks I ask of it. I don’t want to run intervals because they’ll “scorch fat.” I want to up my endurance so that I can hold my own during speed drills. I don’t want to do a bunch of lunges and squats to tone my butt; I want to gain strength so I can get low and stay low, so I can get more out of my skate strides. I want to be a better skater, for myself and for my team.