Ten Decembers
I never thought I’d forget December 9th. It seemed to me like it would be a date carved into my life. I always thought that as my hands traced the calendar of my mind the groove of December 9th would catch my fingers and I’d remember.
The first anniversary, my hands reached for the groove. As the years went on there seemed to be anticipation of it, but the knots, and paint, and holes of my life distracted my hands from the notch. I have found it every year, but in recent years I only spotted December 9th in a belated fashion.
With the ten-year anniversary of December 9th closing in, my eyes saw the groove ahead of me all the way from August. Something about ten years makes it seem like a massively long time ago but still yesterday. The ages of fourteen and twenty-four are so far apart, but still so close together.
It is something of an artificial date, December 9th is. Nothing monumental happened within my brain or my physical condition that day. Except, my physical being and my brain were admitted to a hospital despite their fighting spirit.
Even though I feel so close in time and space to those moments, sometimes I can play back the days in those hideously carpeted halls.
When I roll the footage in my mind, my vantage point is no longer fixated on the floor, but on the impossibly young version of myself. I look at that person as more of shell than a blooming human. In the midst of invisibly ill children her cheeks were rosy, hollow, but rosy and her eyes were still smiling.
That little shell was still fiercely kind and witty. It wasn’t long before she was helping people with homework in the hospital school room.
It wasn’t long before a nurse would tell her she had one of the worst cases of panic disorder she’d ever seen.
If I could reach into the film of those days, and sit in the room with that little shelled human version of myself, I’d give her the courage to look that nurse in the eye and tell her where to put her unprofessional words. I can’t though. So, I look at the girl, and know that she will internalize that statement for years to come in two fashions: as a crutch when she wanted to pull the shell closer to her skin, and as way to eventually shed her exterior. Once she freed herself, that girl became a force.
A few days after December 9th 2009, that young shelled version of myself summoned the courage to sit with a table of people the hospital cafeteria that presented themselves on the outside in such a different way. I fell in love; the hemp necklaces, Grateful Dead shirts, and shaggy dyed hair made me feel at home among the literal madness. Over cold and under-salted fries I showed them an unexpected level of respect for their counter-culture. They passed the ketchup, and accepted me pink Juicy sweater and all. That momentary, superficial acceptance, let an initial layer of anxiety surrounding my own existence melt away.
In my life, I was always accepted. I always had friends. I always had a place to sit. However, in December of 2009, I had to take on a level of myself that was not yet publically accepted. It was still a time of grand stigma around mental illness and mental health. I took my medicine in whispers, and discretely slipped away to therapy. It was not a time and place where people stated they were openly anxious. It was only ten years ago, but it seems like worlds and worlds away.
Those sweet stoners and punks, who were inside that poorly decorated hospital for reasons not far from my own, led their own revolution to reduce stigma through a shared appreciation of art that pulled out human kind’s darkest feelings and made them beautiful. I loved them then for that, and I love them now.
Not long after December 2009 I left the hospital and never returned to see the terrible carpet. Instead I evolved, and revolted, and rebelled, and evolved, and revolted, and rebelled, again and again. In each movement of my own life I decided to be louder and louder about my time spent in mental agony and bliss. It became an unstated mission of mine.
I wasn’t the only one who got louder. Media became a wrecking ball against the whispers of mental illness and started showing it to the public. Slowly, we each talked about it. Not everyone had a struggle with it, but everyone had a sense of the emotions they could reach as a human.
So, ten years later and my fingers find the groove in the wooden calendar of my life and there’s a greater sense of sadness for my little self than ever before. A sisterly sadness, an almost maternal call in my mind to grab her hand, because I know so much more now.
There’s also a strong sense of pride for that skinny, bright, and (against all odds) bubbly fourteen-year-old. She was so scared of losing control but she steeled herself to use every aspect of herself to invite society to speak up, and shut up when called for. I love being her then and now.
