Relationships

My shrink has speculated that perhaps my lifelong affair with depression might stem from my inability to be intimate, open, trusting with others. I’ve been considering this matter for several weeks now. There could be something to this, because, when I really look at my life, I have been distant. I am not too open. I guess I’m so afraid of being betrayed, hurt, lied to, fooled, and let down that I just don’t and won’t allow myself to be vulnerable. If I am vulnerable, I try not to let anyone know just how vulnerable I might be.

But not being vulnerable, not being open, means I am distant and closed off. Am I depressed because I have no open close safe relationships? Maybe. But if that’s the truth, then it would seem an easy thing to fix. If being guarded and suspicious is causing me to be isolated, and paranoid and sad, then all I need to do is stop being hyper-vigilant, and open up, reach out, and trust others.

That’s way harder than it sounds. I think of Charlie Brown and Lucy and that dang football. Lucy is always taunting Charlie Brown to run at the football, she’ll hold it up, and he can kick the fire out of that pig-skin. But every time he tries Lucy, at the last second possible, jerks the ball out of the way and Charlie Brown kicks the air, goes flying into space and lands on his sistabottarinktum.! Like many jokes, the joke is only mildly funny the first time. The real humor comes from the repetition of this gag. Time after time, Lucy tempts Charlie to kick the ball. Charlie refuses, he is tired of being fooled, but Lucy promises, Charlie Brown wants to believe, he needs to trust, and in the end he always trusts Lucy one more time, and Lucy always betrays him one more time. This is sad. And don’t we all send out mental messages to Charlie Brown, “Don’t do it. Don’t trust her. She is just going to betray you again. Stop being such a chump, such an easy mark, such a duped dope.












Well, this is how I see myself. I am guarded and closed off and cold because I just don’t want to try to kick that damn ball again. Why should I trust when my history is telling me to stop, wake up and smell the coffee, don’t try any more, because those you love are just going to yank your heart out and stomp that sucker flat.

But here is the rub. I still believe that we are born in this life to be happy. Life is not enhanced by merely enduring suffering. You are only alive a short time, and after that you’re dead forever. When time is short, shouldn’t we enjoy as much of it as we can?

So I go back to my Life Line drawing. You have to move apart to play catch. But to play catch you can’t be too close, nor can you be too far apart. There is a place where the playing catch works best, it is a sweet spot, a point of balance. I need to be careful, but I also need to keep looking for that sweet spot, that point where my relationships are just close enough without being too close.