Down the Well of Darkness

I've been sliding through life in a gray zone for many months. It's a sticky kind of slide, though. It stops me in my tracks whenever I get some kind of momentum going in my thoughts or actions. Then I fizzle out and the numbness becomes the gray.


I asked for help from a professional who had connections. She pulled her strings and got me in to see a very important man who used the opportunity to have one of his students take her exam by having her do the interview. I accepted that. After all, his expertise and knowledge would be present observing both of us. 


I guess I appear too normal when I'm gray. My flatness indicated to him that I was stable and didn't need any help. He didn't tell me that himself. I only learned later.

I've lived long enough to know what comes next, and here it is born upon me again. It starts with diffuse dreams of sadness that prevent a full night's sleep. I awaken so early that I ask myself, "What are you doing up?" Before the realization hits me, I feel it in my body. I don't need my rational mind to tell me. There it is, that unrelenting greif that has no reality. 


When they speak of anguish, I think of some poor woman who's husband and child have tragically died. When she learns of it she feels her body turn inside out. That's what I feel, even though my loved ones are healthy and safe and all is well. Yet that inner twistedness wrings me out. It's a wet rag clotting my throat, squeezing out the moisture on the edge of my lashes with no release. If I don't guard my soul like a warrior, I would be on the floor curled, lifeless and dark.


I've learned to ride it out, just like the flat gray numbness. But, it's now flat. It sinks down. And so I hang on to the rope hung over the well of greatness about to swallow me up. Is it my grip on that rope giving me those sensations of ants crawling on my face? Or is it just my face reaching for the sunlight peeping lightly in the high distance? 


I know where this leads. I've been on this journey before, too many times. I want out. But, the slimy walls are lumpy and hard, too straight up to give me impetus to climb. I cannot let go of the rope. I must hang on.


I seek an appointment with the new family doctor. Only one intake behind us, will she believe the desperation I cannot explain? She does, but hesitates. Blood tests must be done first. I must hold on a little longer.