...And 9 Years Ago Karmic Kamikaze

Just nine years ago, I was floundering in my last year in a job that wasn’t headed anywhere. An acquaintance who profoundly influenced my twenties and traveled a path through mental health with me from afar had died a year before. My on-going battle with depression, which I was just beginning to quantify, gripped me more than I would ever care to admit and hadn’t admitted, until just now.

Then my wife did it. As I anguished about some issue concerning work or life, or more likely the balance of the two, she gave me one of those patented “Honey talks.” Those talks in our old, old house are distinctive. They are different than the “deck talks” I had with friends sharing a beer and staring at the stars. “Honey talks” all occurred sitting on that same couch facing that same sign whose home was the mantle or a living room wall of three different residences, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” It was my guiding star when I felt troubled, my mantra to mumble. All these talks involve my wife breathing a lot out of frustration, collecting the next thought, trying to absorb every point from all the angles my brain fired its concerns, a download of my thoughts shouted into the void. They all involved her saying, “I know you know this about yourself, but…” or “Honey, you can’t just…” and I usually filled the dead air with, “I know. I know.” or “But maybe, I’m the one who can.”