It's been over a month and a half since I last posted a blog. What happened to me was a predictable but nevertheless unexpected depression in response to my life-threatening experience with staph. It's very humbling if not embarrassing for me to admit that, but one of the signs of depression is a low energy level, a falling off of interest in things that "normally" engage us. Life just feels flat, and we function minimally if we're able to function at all. My wife said I just seemed to lack the joy and energy she's come to expect of me.
Not to "should" on myself, but I had been warned that my recovery would be slow and mixed, two steps forward, one step back typically. I had sort of accepted that on the physical level, but implicitly behaved as if my psyche and spirit were immune from such bounces. I had even been told by some wise medical people that such a mixed process was part of the healing itself, a way our complex organism regroups and fixes itself. The old maxim that "everything happens for a reason," seems to me in this case to express the truth that the body and its mechanisms have a wisdom we would do well to heed. In the world's wisdom traditions, acceptance of what is (vs. what I would want) has often been held up as spiritually and psychologically sound.
The gift and potential lesson in all this is to question my assumption that straight line recovery is the norm. Let me give an example from the past several weeks. If you know me, you know I love music of many kinds, rock, jazz, folk, choral, classical etc. Mostly I stopped listening to music in the past several weeks, and when I did listen it was with no great feel or transport into a positive mood. Did I think I should be different? That could be arrogance that "I'm the boss of me!" The reality, I think, is that I'm not in lots of important ways. My depressed mood seems to correspond to a time of evident physical healing -- I really have gotten physically much better -- perhaps I needed to slow down, to rest . If I had been less depressed, maybe I would have charged into too much activity than was good for my healing. Looking back, the depression allowed me to care for myself in ways that I probably wouldn't have had I been my usual frenetic self.
"All will be well. And all will be well. And, all manner of things will be well." 14th century mystic Julian of Norwich was given these words by her Lord in a vision at her writing desk. The message has comforted countless people that a power greater than themselves has things in hand, that life can ultimately be trusted despite contrary evidence. Can I be grateful for my depression? Apparently.
