The Color of Memory

I've been sleeping a lot these last few days. I'm not talking "Oh, it's good that you're getting enough sleep." I'm talking sleep-for-seven-hours-at-night-and-take-a-three-hour-nap. I'm talking in terms of actual cravings for sweet delicious sleep. I'm talking can't-convince-myself-to-get-out-of-bed sleep.

This happens sometimes, and each time it happens, it's a little scary. Sleep is--and has always been--the key to determining and watching my bipolar disorder. Too little sleep: mania. Too much sleep, this actual craving for sleep: depression. But I'm not depressed. No unexpected inexplicable crying jags, no lack of motivation, no annoying black ring around my vision.

I will never forget the first time I was depressed, because it was so unusual, so unexpected, so fucking weird. On an otherwise normal Friday night, I had watched Requiem for a Dream, finished the movie, laid down and promptly cried into thin air for the better part of an hour, completely unprovoked. Requiem for a Dream is, by all accounts, a devastatingly sad movie, but I wasn't crying because of the movie. I had no idea why I was crying. I just felt desperate.

I remember feeling out of touch for the next few days, participating in the motions of my daily life, doing--even--enjoyable activities. But at night, this heavy burdening sadness came over me, and the sadness was oppressive.

As vividly as I remember falling into depression, so vividly do I remember coming out of that first spell, driving down the road to Greenwood in Shawn's car and feeling--inexplicably--happy again. I thought the worst was over. Of course, it wasn't--and it wouldn't be over for almost three years, when I would finally describe this depression as "pervasive and noticeable" to the man who diagnosed me as bipolar.

I believe like hell in the science of medication, in taking a pill to make your brain feel better. I believe in it because I have to--not just because it is a significant part of my chosen profession, but because it is my life. Some people around me--even some who are such big supporters of this blog--worried that my medicine would take away my creative life and my emotions, and no one worried about that possibility more than me.

Luckily, I have found that my medicine does the opposite of that, freeing my emotions and making my creative life a more pure representation of my personality, of the things that are important to me, and of the things in which I find unspeakably boundless beauty. I can cry about the things that are truly sad, like losing friends and having misunderstandings, because I no longer cry about the things that don't deserve tears, like having to wake up and face the people I love the most. I don't have to take breaks from life to sit in the bathroom with my head leaned against the stall, sucking my thumb and crying because it's just too hard for me to look at people. I am no longer careful to slip some comforting object in my pocket to carry with me so I can constantly touch it and remind myself that it's not too long before I can be back in bed, cradled in sheets and ignoring the world. I am fully engaged in my life, in the people I know, in my friendships and my relationship. My boyfriend no longer has to deal with the hassle of a sad disconnected girlfriend who calls him crying for no damned reason at all. Things are easier, and things are better.

This sleepiness, this soporific heaviness of my eyelids will pass, and will pass quietly with no bang, no sudden realization that life is okay. The sun will not shine more brightly, nor will some huge burden be lifted from my shoulders. My memory of these days in my life will be no different color from those before or after them, no black X over these minutes, hours, days. This sleepiness is a remnant, an artifact of my old life, a connection to black memories that I am all too thankful I am not living now, a reminder that what was almost lost has now been found.