Roll Over Nietzche, Tell Kierkegaard the News!

I've been reading my favorite theologian/philosopher recently: Anne Lamott. You've got to love a writer who says about a particularly bitter break-up that "we said words that perhaps Jesus would not have said."

Her most recent book is "Plan B; Further Thoughts on Faith" which follows the same vein of overtly religious essays I loved in "Traveling Mercies." As I read "Plan B," much of it was familiar, because I had read many of them when they first appeared in Salon. This left me free to read for the subtleties, the nuances I had missed when I read them the first time.

Some of those nuances are new, because she did revise those essays before they were collected in the book. Some of them I missed as I was reading for plot and for her humor. Some nuances are simply invisible when read online. I firmly believe that reading online is a manifestly different act that reading a book, even if the content was identical. Online there is the (rarely resisted) temptation to open new windows, to run audio and maybe even a game of solitare or something. There is something that makes me hurry when I read online, a sense that there is so much content out there, just a click away, and that time is short. It's like gulping down a cold drink on a hot day--you're already taking the next mouthful before you've swallowed the first.

Anyway, this time around, I'm seeing how important it is to her to be tender with herself. The message comes through in essay after essay, especially in her colege graduation address. This is the only life we have, and we need to appreciate the things that matter. Society tells us that we should be productive, rich, we should strive for prestige, or power over others. Anne reminds us that those things are never as fulfilling as we think they will be.

I struggle with this regularly. I always thought of myself as ambitious: someone who wasn't going to settle for anything less than success. I thought I would work my entire life, and would push into the highest levels of whatever I decided to do.

The plan was put into motion when I was accepted into Yale Law School. I chose Yale over Harvard so that I wouldn't tie myself into knots over my grade point average. Yale Law School doesn't calculate grade points or class rank. We graduated in alphabetical order, which meant I graduated second in my class.

Then, I got pregnant. I thought I was just getting ready for a change in my legal focus, that I was bored with doing the same old things. No, it was hormonal, and THAT was a permanent change. Despite all my vows that I would not let motherhood change me--I was changed. Profoundly and permanently I was changed. By the time I was pregnant with my second child, I was seriously struggling wih depression; depression that I believe was triggered by hormonal changes from pregnancy. It was not post-partum depression: it did not pass on its own. It took several years, multiple therapists and more than a single antidepressant to get me back to feeling like someone I could recognize again.

Now, as long as I take my meds, I feel pretty good almost all the time. Once I got the right combination of medications, I suddenly experienced what it was like to be happy. Happy! I had forgotten what that was like! It was such a precious gift, to actually find that i could enjoy my own life. My children were a source of joy, not just an enormous obligation that I feared I couldn't meet. It's still amazing to me: that I have such a wonderful and kind husband, that I have such bright and delightful daughters, that I don't live with fear.

I'm still amazed, daily, that life can be so good. It seems that, after such pain--and it was deep and unremitting pain--such a gift that I've been given; a second chance at life. Isn't that enough? Isn't it enough that I'm no longer half dead, that I'm able to live?

But I don't--at least, not when asked. For me, alone, I am so amazed that I am still here that there is nothing to do but just be grateful. Anne understands that. It is important to be present in your own life, and present to those you love.

Depression makes it hard to be present for those I love, even well managed depression. I still have some seriously bumpy days, and what my family needs from me is not easy for me to give. Emotional support is not something of which I have vast reserves, and I fiercely believe that I am needed to provide stability and support for my family.

I shudder to think what would happen to my fragile state if I tried to add employment to my mix, and I do feel significant cultural pressure to become an economic engine. What I keep asking myself is...why? Why is it not acceptable to simply be grateful for what I have and to tend to my patch of the world? I don't have those answers, but when I read Anne Lamott, I realize that someone else is also asking those questions, and I am not alone.