April 18, 2005

When Jeb and I were separated I went through a depression, the kind where I came home from work and went straight to my room and lay on my bed with the lights off and the cat by my side. And I'd stay there all night. When Jay let me borrow his DaVinci Code book on tape I came straight home and lay on my bed with the lights off and the tape recorder playing. I often fell asleep before the tape ended and I'd awake to the loud click of the machine turning off.

I had lost my appetite and didn't eat much during that separation. I became fixated on Taco Bell bean burritos, extra cheese, no onion. I'd have that for lunch with a Mt. Dew, and for dinner I'd have... well, most of the time I didn't have anything. Or I'd eat some Triscuits in the dark while listening to the DaVinci Code. Of course, the lack of eating took its toll on me and I started getting weak and exhausted (as if the mental strain alone wasn't enough). I think the pinnacle of my "sickness" was right around June 12.

That was the anniversary of our first date and I had invited Jeb to dinner, which he had originally accepted and then declined. The day before. That, of course, sent me into a declining spiral of hell. I remember the day vividly.. It was Friday, June 11. I was wearing the bright green sweater set from J.Crew that Jeb had gotten for me for Christmas the year before. I had on my white capri pants and my little white kitten heel sandals. When I called Jeb to confirm dinner for the next night he said he didn't think it was a "good idea" since we were still separated and things were still awkward. This of course upset me and we launched into a heated discussion about our marriage status and when we ended the conversation I was in tears. The word “divorce” had been bandied about too many times in that one conversation and I was facing the fear that maybe this was finally it, that everything was really coming to a definite end.

So I went into the bathroom to let my tears out. I took refuge in the large stall on the far end of the bathroom, the one where you can’t see into the stall from any spaces between the doors because the stall is so far to the end. And I huddled in the corner and bawled. I didn’t even bother muffling myself when someone came in to use the restroom… I just kept crying. My heart was dying. I was there in my pretty summer outfit, huddled in the corner of the bathroom, sobbing about my failed marriage, with dinner reservations for the next night and no date. When I went home that night I holed up in my room for the whole weekend, calling in sick to my part time job, and stayed in bed almost the whole time. I didn’t eat, I didn’t drink. I died, slowly, bit by bit, my soul slipping out of me with each tear.

Monday morning when I tried to get ready for work I almost passed out in the shower. That’s when I realized that my depression was starting to get the best of me. I went to the emergency room where the doctor told me to stay home and rest for a few days and I HAD to eat. HAD TO, HAD TO, HAD TO eat. And that’s what brings me to the most surreal moment of my separation.

I was home alone that night – Lisa and Josh must have been out somewhere – and I took a hot bath to relax and hopefully soothe my soul, what was left of it. And I sat there, in the tub, forcing myself to eat a pear, while tears streamed down my face. It was such a surreal moment. Juice from the pear dripped down my arms and tears streamed down my face as I took bite after bite. Huddled over in the tub, the hot water now lukewarm, the bubbles having evaporated. My heart wounded more than it had ever been wounded before. I cried for losing Jeb, I cried for losing my home, I cried for losing my heart, I cried for how lost I had become in my own depression. I cried because I loved pears and here I was FORCING myself to eat one, just so I wouldn’t go hungry and waste away.

It’s an image fresh in my mind to this day, as if it were only yesterday that I had fallen to such depths of my sorrow. And that image haunts me, but in a good way. It reminds me that sometimes we let sorrow get the best of us. It reminds me that I never want my relationship with Jeb (or anyone) to dissolve so much that I am left an empty shell. And it reminds me that I am strong, no matter how weak I think I might be. It took a lot of strength to force myself to eat that pear, a lot of inner strength… but I ate it. The whole thing.

that was then - this is now