Next phase

Most of my life has been in a state of depression but as I get older I seem more anxious. I live in a Prozac Nation. Waiting to creep away to somewhere no one can find me but then loneliness would most likely overtake me. My life has been lived around an alcoholic father, prescription dependent mom, all thankfully ending by the time I was 19. Parents have to grow up too, to make room for the next generation. As I watch my brothers following our parents footsteps. Each day is a fight to conquer personal additions, thankfully mine is not as drastic as theirs. Maybe because I read so much I do not have their problems. In a story one can escape reality, you become one with the characters. You understand the characters thoughts and think, “I’ve been there or I am there.” They say the desert is another word for wasteland. It does seem pretty desolate and quiet just picturing it is depression in its own way.

Just as the main character in Off the Map I too came out of my depression and got back to life. Becoming a parent helps you realize you have someone depending on you. And some prescriptions are actually good for you. I quit smoking a couple of years ago and now if I can just get a hold of my food and coffee consumption I might just be perfect, well maybe not but I can still dream. My parents both fought their addictions and are now just waiting for my brothers to realize they can be free. They are both smart just on a rut. One has a family and hopefully that will make reality come home to him. While my other brother just published a book of poems, one dedicated to his hero “Bob Dylan.” His band reminds me of Rage Against the Machine, their lyrics have a power to them and make people think outside of the box much like my brother. But where his is geared to our lives and living, theirs are more toward change and their fight for the uprising and repression being experienced in Oaxaca, and after understanding their plight one cannot help but understand their passion. Their lyrics bring the listener to their radical message. Their song Testify is what it is. It testifies to the fight of other countries and within our own battles but brings the listener to the understanding if we would just “open the door” we would see the fight. We are so filled with garbage it is hard to decipher the truth. We here news reports about different countries and of America but do we really know the truth of what is going on or simply just take the reporters and governments word for it? Our, my, perception is usually focused on what I/we want to see.

Do we look at our own families and not see what is really there? I love my family and despite our differences I accept them as who they are. Living 2000 miles away from them is hard. I would do anything for them and know they would do the same for me. Even though the character Ulee Jackson seems tough on the outside and inside in the movie Ulee’s Gold, nothing stops him from helping his family..  No matter one can see themselves in him. As his story moves on, an aging parent can understand his saying, “I feel like an old drone. They don’t need me now” (Midwest). As my house is silent, I can feel his sorrow. Is life after children really roaming through a Wal-Mart just to be around people? With empty nest syndrome can we see each other conversing with the grocery boy as Walt Whitman does in Ginsberg’s poem Supermarket in California? Does he do it out of loneliness? Perhaps he had a different approach; either way wandering around solitaire is still alone. Will anxiety come when the store announces its closing? Knowing one can still wander the streets looking at families settle in for the night can help.

Since life seems to settle down thoughts of a new focus emerge. To look at Hollywood one can always concentrate on other countries, hopeless villages that need water and food. Our lives seem so petty given their circumstances. Our own citizens are still homeless or at least one paycheck away from it. Governments seem preoccupied with others than our struggle at home. By helping Americans would that not help us become strong enough to help others? Does that make it right for us and them to destroy properties of both humans and wildlife? Author Glenn Woicestyn in his article Environment believes if governments would protect individual rights, not violate them, we could stop handing government the power to sacrifice people to nature, by relinquishing the power it currently yields.

Going back to Florida, one sees new buildings and less beach front. Natives complain of how busy life has become. Now a vacationer I can enjoy the beach days, carefree visiting with friends and family. On the other hand all vacations come to an end, there is always the leaving day. Relating personally with Sarah Jewetts character in her short story The Backward View, as her last day of vacation comes to an end, a new friend Mrs. Todd barely speaks to her in fact she feels like they are “on the edge of a quarrel,” just as my last day visiting my family. The sadness of knowing it will probably be another year or two before I see them again becomes unbearable. It is hard to maintain composure as each day, month and year passes you know this may be the last time you see someone. Could that have been their last goodbye, or mine, only time will tell? Depression seems to stem from our lives being swept away. Time ticks unnaturally but family brings time back. Life goes on no matter where a person is at. Are the depressed weak or is it really just a chemical imbalance? Is that why the majority is on anti-depressants? But when those little pills help you face life there cannot be any harm. Just recently the public was once again brought into the life of someone who battled depression, “I just don't see any way out of this,” he wrote in an essay for Guideposts magazine. “It's like I'm going out of my mind, I feel so low, so... hopeless. No, cope less." Finally someone I can relate too until it’s too late, Wallace died April 7^th, 2012. But his legacy will live on as a man, public figure told the world his weakness and how he survived through it.

  Our priorities seem to come from outside ourselves more worried about outside the box than within. Groups sing about it, actors spend a little time and money, and writers complain but no one seems to solve the problem. Instead we keep building on every piece of open land and then complain when natural habitats move into our neighborhoods. When our own children are leaving the nest after eighteen years of telling ourselves we cannot wait for them to move out, it takes all your will to let them go. Only to find ourselves wondering why we talked more to the cashier at the store than our kids? Wanting only to go back home and live with our parents after fighting them through young adulthood. Life seemed so simpler back then, if only we can turn back the clock. What would I say to the young me? Probably “just pay attention more.”

Works Cited

Ginsberg, Allen. "A Supermarket in California." Writing.Upenn. UPenn, 2007. Web. 10 Mar 2012. http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/supermarket.html

Goldwert, Lindsay. "Mike wallace was a Hero to Depressions Sufferers." Daily News. New York Daily News, 2012. Web. 7 Apr 2012. http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-04-09/news/31314476_1_depression-sufferers-wallace-and-cbs-news-suicide-note

Juwett, Sarah O. The Backward View from The Country of the Pointed Firs. 1910. Web. 2 Mar 2012.  http://bartleby.com/125/24.html

Nunez, Victor, dir. Ulee's Gold. Orion Home Video, 1997. DVD. 

Rage Against the Machine. Testify. Sony Music Entertainment, Inc. 2012. Web. 11 Apr. 2012. http://www.ratm.com

Scott, Campbell, dir. Off the Map. Orion Home Video, 2003. DVD.

Woiceshyn, Glenn. Environmentalism, Eco-Terrorism and Endangered Species. 1999. Web. 15 Mar 2012. http://capitalismmagazine.com/1999/01/environmentalism-eco-terrorism-and-endangered=species