For nurses in an intensive care unit, there is an unteachable gift that gets honed related to sound. The equipment, the lights, the hum of life, all become the context that our work exists in. We may not be able to articulate what it is that we know by just listening, but we know. Background noise, the sound of a working ventilator, the hair raising recognition that something is wrong and someone needs help with their patient before you hear the words yelled into the hallway. It was the sound of the quick and heavy foot steps and the way the intensity of the voice got projected before all of the words were even spoken. You knew. We know, and we act. It's the sound of an IV pump beeping for too long followed by an alarm that makes us get to the room more quickly. It's the tension in the face of someone who is dying that we pick up on hours, even days, before the resignation of the body. That is the space that nurses save lives in. The stillness of life after the exhale is finished, but before the inhale is initiated. We know but can't tell you what it is. It could be compared to driving your car and knowing something is wrong because of the sound it is or isn't making, or the sense of motion that feels different then usual. I've taken for granted how much my senses inform my world. Smelling the perfume "Michael" takes me immediately to Australia, smelling a camp fire takes me back to the nights in high school spent with the people of my past, and hearing the difference between elated tears and spirit crushing sorrow makes me tear up when it is the latter. How miraculous these senses are for our lives. The weight of a sleeping baby on your chest that brings feelings of peace.
There is another area in my life where the 'muscle memory' of 42 years of experience shows up and speaks to my life. I can furrow my brow, turn down the corners of my mouth, relax my body into a defeated posture, and I'm on my way to feeling depressed. I would not do this on purpose but after spending a whole lot of time in that depressive posture, it is no surprise that the emotions of hopelessness, anxiety, and apathy come to keep the posture of my body company. It is a horrifying carousel of self-defeating existence.
I was quite sick last week with the usual winter potpourri of fever, cough, chills, aches, and nausea. The kind of sick that makes sleeping exhausting work. The heaviness of an over tired body is one of my biggest false flags of depression. I am glad that I can recognize it as fatigue and not defeat. So last week in the midst of my cold medicine haze, I couldn't shake the feeling of overwhelming sadness. There wasn't any event that prompted these feelings of sadness. No horrible tragedy or death of a loved one. But, nonetheless, I felt the deep ache of an emotional pain that had no name. What was it that my body knew that I didn't? I kept asking myself what it had been that prompted such turmoil.Then I was asking myself why in the hell was I crying? Then, the most ludicrous of all ideas came to mind, (which is usually the work of the Holy Spirit)- I was on the floor with my knees bent and my fingers interlocked behind my head, not even knowing why I was doing it. My crying and counting was- shocking and somewhat hysterical. I don't know how many sit ups I did. It wasn't many before I lifted myself off the floor in astonishment of not feeling overwhelmingly sad anymore. As a matter of fact, I didn't feel any of the emotions that just a few minutes prior were doing a dress rehearsal of another major depressive battle to endure. But they weren't real. The sadness wasn't real. I had the single biggest epiphany about my depression: I am not crazy, but my chemistry is. How and why, I don't have answers to. But that night, in a daring act of rebellion, I hijacked my self from the chemistry that was attacking it. I climbed up and out of the depressive posture that my mind and body have so frequently and easily conformed to. I replaced the emotional and muscle memory of depression with the motion of my body. In all the history of my major depressive disorder, I have never done sit ups. I took the chemical context and replaced it with a physical reality with absolutely no connection to the emotions of sadness, hopelessness, apathy, and defeat. And I kinda wanna say "In your face, sucker!" This is the very first time I have been able to short circuit the cycle of depression. This was my victory. Cue the song "Eye of the Tiger" no, not Katy Perry's version- pft.
