Day Seven: Of Water, Wine, and Siren Songs (part 1)

The slightly warm days of spring have given way to the much warmer and occasionally hot early days of summer. It is the first week of June, school is out for the summer break, and we are en route to the beach for a week. As much as I am dreading spending a week in close proximity to my family, I am also looking forward to the sound of the waves, the salt infused air, and the sun on my skin. We are almost there, driving down a smaller state highway, headed toward the coast. Several small towns flicker past the window. I have travelled this road so many times in my life that the names are as familiar as old friends. I know which ones are bigger and which are so small that only a city limits sign lets you know that they exist. Before much longer, the small inland towns give way to the area that is nearly on top of the beach highway. Where there were once city hall buildings, schools, soccer fields, farmhouses, and churches, there are now seafood restaurants, souvenir shops, grocery stores, and an eclectic mix of outlet shopping malls, art galleries, and tattoo parlours. 
 
About a mile from where the road comes to a T with the beach highway, we pass one of these tattoo parlours and although I have never seriously thought I would ever get a tattoo, I find myself drawn to its purple and neon green painted exterior. As we pass by it, the strongest urge comes over me and I suddenly find that I want to go into that shop and actually get a tattoo. What on earth is the matter with me? Where did that come from? How completely bizarre. Still....no, stop that. You are NOT getting a tattoo. I shake my head to clear my thoughts as we turn onto the beach highway, but resolve to discuss this odd urge with Gray (and possibly Pendragon at a later date) that night.

No sooner than we've turned onto the beach highway, we are turning into a condominium complex on the beach which is to be our home for the next week. I unfasten my seat belt and step out of the van, stretching my arms over my head to ease the slight stiffness from the long car ride. As I do, I am inundated by everything around me. It is late afternoon and the sun is still in the sky, shining its warm rays everywhere. I turn my face skyward to soak in its warmth as I stretch and inhale deeply, filling my lungs with the heavy, humid, salty smelling air. I exhale and bend down to touch my toes, feeling the muscles in my body relax with the movement. I strain my ears and despite the sounds of passing cars and my children's excitement over our arrival, I can just hear the ocean waves on the beach. Deep inside me, I feel a pull toward the ocean and think for the briefest of moments of abandoning my family for a few minutes to go and wade in the edge of the surf. This all too brief reverie is broken by the sound of Gray's voice asking where we need to go. I exhale a small sigh and join him and the kids as we go in search of my parents and the two bedroom condo we'll be sharing for the next week.

For the next six days that follow, we swim in the surf, plunge in the pool, make merry in the sand, eat our fill of seafood, and get a few more winks than normal thanks to the extra hands. In spite of this, as the week progresses, I find there are two things that besiege my brain when the sun has set, the condo is quiet with sleep, and insomnia renders me unable to close my eyes. Although time has passed since our arrival, there is a still very present desire to get a tattoo running through my head. 

Less pleasant than this strange desire for body art is a very dark urge to leave in the middle of the night and finally make good on one of the various plans my brain has been pondering for the last month. This urge is borne of thoughts (or ideation, as Pendragon calls it) that have been plaguing me for a good two months. In the beginning, these thoughts of self-destruction were fleeting and easily brushed aside, but as the days and weeks have passed, they have grown darker, stronger, more insistent, and ravenously threatening. Although I spent a week resisting taking my new-old prescription, I finally gave in and have become the normally compliant patient I have always been. The Paxil that I have been taking has not been so compliant. It has been a good three weeks since I began taking it and absolutely no change in my mood. I am fully aware that the "full therapeutic effect" of many antidepressants is not felt until a good 6-8 weeks have passed, but I also know that at least some effect should be felt by a couple of weeks after beginning the medication. I have already decided that I will give it until I finish the pills in the bottle before I make a judgment call, but in that deepest instinctual part of me, I know my judgment is already decided and that this just isn't working.

In fact, despite all the distractions of this trip, I find that my depression is worsening by the day. I can feel it sinking deep within my bones and by the end of the trip as we are returning home, I realize with a jolt that the only peaceful moments in this week when it did not enter my brain were when I was immersed in the cool water of the condo swimming pool, sounds muted, body supported by the weight of the water, holding my breath. All throughout this trip, the darkness has been with me, creeping in and filling the spaces in my mind and spirit.

(end part 1)