Exhale

Depression has a purpose if you use it before it uses you.

Transform it to light.

Compost it through art.

-xicanisma_

~

My sister noticed it first.

We were walking through the airport just a few days ago, and my demeanor was as follows: red, sweaty, self-pitingly hot. It was going to be a long travel day, one of those days in which you must detach yourself from any sensory cravings so that the constant shift between plane and airport and crowds do not drive you momentarily insane. I was feeling very sick. It was the stomach sickness that you’re not really supposed to talk about in public. As my family waited for our bags, I once again made it to the bathroom- red, sweaty, self-pitingly hot. I closed the stall and yes, I was still sick. I really wish it were socially acceptable to moan in public restroom stalls, that there could be a utopia in which restroom noises induced a sense of empathetic solidarity rather than crude judgment. I see a pair of purple shoes that belong to the person in the stall next to me; I know this person must have been in my position before! Wouldn’t they support me? But alas, I bite my tongue, ridiculous self-pity growing stronger.

I hear my phone begin to buzz, and it’s my father. As my flight was cancelled, he is trying to find other routes to get me back to Denver. In my typical flustered fashion, I fumble too rapidly for the phone to hear my dad already barking orders. With my phone in hand, I stumble up, quickly pull myself together and run out to meet my family. Oh god, running was a bad choice. I limp and stifle more moans.

We make it to check-in after walking though most of the airport. Still red, sweaty, self-pitingly hot. I stand in front of my sister, and she tells me I am bleeding on my ankle. Startled, I look down to find the wound. I finally locate it at the cusp of my shoe. I look a little closer and that is when I realize something.

There is no blood on my ankle. That’s shit. That is my own shit. I have pooped on my leg.

Somehow, when I was in the stall standing up and fumbling with my phone, my body had continued its, um let’s just call it, ‘cleanse’ and I hadn’t felt it. I still stare down at it, not blinking. On perhaps too many levels, I am not surprised. I amend my physical state: red, sweaty, self-pitingly hot, *shitty.

Bring it on, 2016.

I share this last moment of my 2015 because I want all of you to never be able to look at me the same way again  at this moment’s heart, it is all about intimacy, rawness and vulnerability, which are the words I hold close after a very very long, somewhat painful but also brilliant year. As I reflect on my 2015, I must again revel in the power of looking back, of seeing, of opening. Reflection- just as words were always meant to be- is the purposeful connection to the concepts that drive our lives and give value to the deepest essences of our being. It is the journey of connecting ourselves to ourselves. In this way, reflection is a fundamentally intimate state of being and knowing. To drive down walls both within ourselves and between others is to render vulnerability as a crucial microcosm of the human experience.

I’ve only just started to call it Depression. Now, I don’t really have a finite beginning or ending for this period of my life, but overall, Depression colors January and February of last year. I did not call it Depression, could not name it for a very long time as I did not want to admit that something big was broken. I know I chose to stay abroad because of this Depression; I have written about my great breaking point, but it extended, like a winding road, deep into the months that followed that moment. Most times, I am a very public person. I talk fast and stories spill out of me like waterfalls. But with Depression, I never talked about it out loud.

I’m not really here to analyze the causes of my Depression; I want to keep the many layers of this mine to hold, tucked just behind the cusp of my ear. I can tell you that I chose to be very alone- to the highest extremity when I decided to stay in Bolivia on my own. Alone is of course an incomplete term as I did have the support system of a few friends and a few families, but overall, my decisions, my actions and my well-being in Bolivia all rested on my own shoulders. Depression is a diverse experience. I have realized that I personally become very private, a contrast to my innate chatty nature. I do not share my brokenness until I can be sure that I have intellectualized it- composed it with great care, noted highlights that will be easy for others to understand without compelling them to ask too many questions.

I did cry on park benches, and I went to bed early so that my dreams would not catch up with me. I went on many walks. I drank cups of tea. I was alone; I think the longest stretch I went without human interaction was 7 days in the beginning of February while I was working on the farm. Let me tell you, the mind does funny things when you have that much space to be with yourself uninterrupted.

Interestingly enough, throughout this period, I got to exist as a fictional character. In Bolivia, I spoke Spanish, so while I did talk and get to know many beautiful people, the language I spoke in was not mine. My linguistic restriction here was one of privilege, but I still remember the disconnect that haunted me when I spoke in one language while thinking in another. At home, the identity I architected via my blog had a life of its own. I chose what I shared and I designed who I wanted to be, and so, for many months I got to exist as this identity in the space of ideal words: brave, funny, missed. My self-created character got to exist in adventure, and while that part of me was validated in my reality (the character may have been carefully managed but she was not untrue), she was incomplete. That funny, brave girl was just a sliver of my reality; I held onto her tightly. But brokenness was there too. Most times, instead of grand adventure, I was sitting on park benches trying to find pieces of Universe within me- a spiritual quest I am still surprised I resorted to. Through all these incomplete languages, I steadied myself. Through writing, I saved myself by loving words. I loved the way they felt under my fingertips. I loved that they made me feel beautiful. I loved that they connected me to others. I loved that they left me feeling warm and understood. Somehow, the identity I had architected through words also saved the Aly I felt inside, the one no one saw but me. Slowly, like a warm heat lamp, I began to believe in the best parts of myself again, and I claimed power in my weaknesses. 

A lot has happened since then. I came home and began the process of becoming human again; my character could not stay infinite. I let go of the physical manifestation of my childhood. I taught in a classroom for the first time. I got angry about different things. I was so so exuberant about something until it hurt me. So, this is what I’ve learned about pain, about brokenness: I did not become broken then whole again. To be whole, I would have had to smooth over cracks, mold them to be unseen, succumb to erasure. Instead of whole I am a mosaic. I reflect you, yes you, in my brilliance because I have invited along my pain, my Depression, as my equal. I am brave not because I am unbroken; I am brave because my scar tissue reveals that the World has exhaled within me and that is powerful.

Loveliest you, I hope that you run and find fat roses. I hope you dance with wild ecstasy in your fingertips and shoulders and bones. I hope you help wipe away someone else’s tears so that they may return the favor someday. I hope you laugh deep belly laughs even in shy moments. Share warm cups of tea. Be angry. Use music to awaken. And most of all, I hope you find sweet intimacy, rawness and vulnerability in this 2016 because hey-

You never know when you might shit on your ankle.