Don't Fall On Me

Walk down the cool side of the hot street early this morning, make my way to work. Listen to REM's unthinkably beautiful old song, "Fall On Me." Hum along quietly, aware I am trying to contain the impulse to "lift your arms up to the sky, ask the sky...don't fall on me." If I let myself, I might drop to my knees on the hard pavement, look up and beg the sky....

I have been a fan of REM since their emergence in the early 1980's. My then-boyfriend, later husband, and father of my children introduced me to them before they busted into pop music. My older daughter too is a great fan of their early music. My younger daughter, ever on her own tangent to eternal sunshine, can't stand the band. She is wiser than me—if a song makes her sad, she turns it off.

Me, I'm drawn these days back to a sadness more bitter than ordinary sadness. An ordinary depression, perhaps. Yes, this is the haunting I experienced—starting its way in, ever so insidiously—nine years ago. A haunting that pulled me away from my work and into intensive treatment for a year. A haunting I thought I had conquered, until lately again....

I watch and wait. I turn inward and outward for support. Harder to access inwardly, the wires aren't connecting so well now, especially to self-compassion, the crucial antidote. I turn to blogging again because I want to call out to all those who suffer this curse: Let us gather our collective courage, and endure toward the blessing of the other side of sunset.

If only the sky won't fall on me.