5 Minutes To Valencia
The electronic sign on the highway glows when we drive beneath it. "5 Minutes To Valencia", its orange letters read, and I've read it so often from my place in the passenger seat that I have it memorized. There's something poetic about it, as though Valencia were some Romanesque fantasy city built from silver and gold, Rivendell in the desert. Thanksgiving has just passed us by here in Tucson, and I was thankful for these little inspirations. It's always nice to have something to write about.
There is no room for me to spin here in our little mobile home, so I've been trying to compensate by walking. The exercise tires out my brain, stops it from wanting to spin and lets it focus on other things. It's odd how mental illness forces you to adapt ways to circumvent your programming. Walking has been one of these little brain hacks I've used since my time at Wellesley. It's not perfect: you can picture my brain waving its arms about, wondering why I haven't spun today, why I insist on walking instead. But it'll do. I've got blisters on my heels already, but it'll do. I was thankful for this place to peacefully walk.
Rain comes in the night sometimes, and in the mornings I can smell the water on the pavement. I had been prepared not to hear the rain for a long, long time; it's as though a little bit of Massachusetts has followed me to Arizona. It's comforting. I was thankful for the rain.
I'm writing a character in my novel with major depressive disorder, and so for her I've been looking through old journal entries. It's frustrating, to think that I struggled for years without having access to medication, without having a doctor help me the way I so sorely needed to be helped. I was reminded of what it was like this week, when I lost access to one of my medications and spent the day in bed, feeling too woozy to sit up. I really can't believe that I tried so hard for so long to go to class and attempt homework while like that. It was a mistake, a dreadful mistake, one that cost me a great deal. I'm trying not to be bitter, to look at it, like my mother says, as a learning experience. Hopefully my work will raise some awareness for mental illness, so care can be better funded and people more informed on the symptoms they may have and the help they can get. I was thankful for my doctors.
You can tell a lot about someone, I think, by the way they treat small creatures. Bugs, beetles, bees. Whether they move them to safety or crush them underfoot. I was thinking about this as I watched my husband move a spider outside unharmed. I was thankful for him, for his strength and for his gentleness.
My mom jokes that I'll never get my cat back from her; she's been living with my parents while Jack and I get situated here in Tucson. I keep thinking that I see Kimono out of the corner of my eye, perhaps curled on the bed or waiting by the chair. I was thankful that she is being taken care of at my mother's house, where she can run and play and bask in the sun all she wants.
Depression has taught me to be thankful for all that I can experience now; it feels like I've been given a second chance at life, and I'm trying my best to take it.
