This Close to Happy
Page 24
37
There is something I want that I cannot have, a redress that will never come. No one is going to make anything up to me—not now, not then, not ever. This can’t be so, but it is so. This simple truth enrages me—I will not make do with such thin gruel!—but there is nowhere for my rage to go. If you’re a socialized person, you can’t go spewing your anger at the nearest available target. You must learn to live with it, sublimate it somehow, or work it out in a counterproductive fashion, by eating or drinking or drugging too much. No wonder I am so fascinated by serial killers, staying up late at night to watch their biographies on TV and reading up on them, everyone from Ted Bundy to John Wayne Gacy, stopping on the way to acquaint myself with the British and Russian variety, fashioning an expertise that would make me a useful addition to Quantico’s serial killer profiling unit.
These days I am in need of reading glasses, and more recently I have been diagnosed with diabetes and have to take medications to keep my blood sugar under control. (I am not sufficiently committed to good health to stop eating sugar and pasta, however, and I’ve taken to hiding cookies from Zoë—who is protective of my health in a way I fail to be—so she won’t confiscate them.) Then there are my knees, which have gone arthritic on me, sending shoots of pain down my legs whenever I walk up or down a flight of stairs. Also: I am vain when I am not too depressed to care about how I look, so there is also the possibility that one of the injections of cosmetic fillers I occasionally indulge in will go astray and occlude some crucial artery, causing blindness if not death. You see, I have grown old—older, despite the fact that I have dreamed of killing myself since I was a young girl, leaning out the seventh-floor bedroom window and imagining myself jumping soundlessly to the street, away from everything that was wrong with my family and away from my incessant tears. There is a line in Jean Rhys’s unfinished, posthumously published autobiography, Smile Please, that states the dilemma exactly: “Oh God, I’m only twenty and I’ll have to go on living and living and living.”
I pretend, that is, that I understand the basic scaffolding of adult life, where one is called upon to look assiduously after one’s own well-being, when the fact is I don’t care about my well-being except in the most superficial, narcissistic sense of not letting my hair go gray and of trying to stave off the more onerous signs of aging by the application of eye cream and moisturizer. Other than that, flirting with death as I do and still longing for the parenting I didn’t get, I generally ignore my physical health until such moment as it causes me immediate discomfort or pain. I don’t mean to suggest that I abstain from the tedious rituals of daily hygiene—I brush my teeth, take showers, and wash my hair on a regular basis—but even here I sometimes feel resistance coiling up within me, demanding to know the purpose of this upkeep, why things need to be done over again and again. Let your teeth rot and your hair hang stringy and be done with it. Sometimes the malaise wins out: I haven’t had a mammogram in over fifteen years, although one of my sisters has had breast cancer. I guess it’s my own defiant little form of Russian roulette: catch me if you can.
And yet here is where you’ll find me, come summer, despite my intermittent suicidal longings—that “almost unnameable Lust,” as Anne Sexton described it in a poem: I’m lying on my back in the swimming pool in the garden behind the small but inviting house I have rented on Long Island, very much alive. This is the fourth house I have tried and the one most suited to me, since it is within walking distance of the village (I still haven’t learned to drive and at this point it looks like I probably never will) and is compact enough so that I don’t feel lonely when I’m alone. It has taken me a while to get used to renting a summer home, to feel comfortable with the planning and stocking up and inviting, not to mention paying for someone else’s choice of furniture and dinner plates, but I am finally beginning, in fits and starts, to get the hang of it.
I have not been back in the hospital for eight years, although I have had some very shaky times, when all the negative feelings pop up again, robust as can be. I once dreamed of conquering my depression for good, but I have come to understand that it is a chronic condition, as much a part of me as my literary bent. To this day I can’t figure out if it qualifies as a full-fledged disease, like cancer, but I’ve learned the hard way to give it, ephemeral as it may seem, its due. So although I fantasize about going off medication for good, I continue to pop my pills prophylactically, the side effects notwithstanding, and I continue to see a shrink, a combined approach that works as well as can be hoped for. If I can’t quite declare victory over my depression, I am giving it a run for its money, navigating around it, reminding myself that the opposite of depression is not a state of unimaginable happiness but a state of approximate contentment, of relative all-right-ness. Perhaps depressives expect too much of life when they’re not feeling depressed, have too exalted an idea of what the standard is. One night last winter I heard myself repeating to Zoë, much to my surprise, something my friend E. has told me, over and over again. “Life is a gift,” I told my daughter, and then, to underline the point, I added: “A great gift.” I expected Zoë to roll her eyes, especially at this kind of semi-pious sentiment coming from me, but instead she looked intrigued.
When I first heard my friend say this, it went over my head, like the maxim I spotted on a list in a store window as I was walking along Madison Avenue: “Activate self-esteem.” What, I wondered, could that possibly mean? You either were possessed of self-esteem or you weren’t; it wasn’t something you simply “activated.” It in turn reminded me of a statement I saw stitched on a bright Jonathan Adler pillow: “Hope is chic,” as though hope were the new navy, decorative rather than essential. Although I’m not sure how much I believe that life is a gift (if only because no one asks whether you, in particular, desire to be born before you tunnel your way out of the womb), I very much want to believe it. Perhaps it’s a sign of growing older, but anything else seems ungrateful—even to me.
I close my eyes and float where the water takes me. It is a lambent Saturday afternoon in July, not intolerably hot, with a slight breeze stirring the leaves on the trees. The two friends I have invited for the weekend are reading on deck chairs and Zoë, who has been expected all day, is predictably late. It is not an exceptional scene but it is one that I cannot imagine having arranged until relatively recently, one that requires me to take the helm instead of hoping that someone else will manage things for me. I stand up in the pool with the intention of doing a few laps when suddenly somewhere in the sky I could swear I feel my mother’s presence, more benign than not. For a moment I feel her loss intensely, and when I’m sure no one is watching I look up and give her a little wave, just in case.
After swimming back and forth vigorously a few times, I get out of the water, wrap a towel tallis-style around my shoulders, and sink down on a chair next to my friends. They are discussing whether or not they believe in psychics; J., who is very logical, is explaining why she considers them to be con artists, while L., an editor for one of the magazines I write for, insists on keeping a more open mind. I pick up the book I’ve been reading, KL, an eight-hundred-page history of concentration camps—my typical light summer fare—that is both heartbreaking and riveting, when Zoë suddenly appears in the entrance to the garden, dressed in her usual floppy clothes and carrying a bulging backpack. “There you are,” I say, “I was giving up on you.”
In an hour or so the four of us will take a walk to the shabby pizzeria-cum-Mexican-restaurant I have taken a liking to, frequented mainly by locals rather than summer folk. Later we will watch TV or play word games while eating tubs of pale ice cream from the Candy Kitchen, and Zoë will pick an argument with me before the night is done, as if on cue—something to do with the way I wash dishes or host guests that is intrinsically objectionable. As we are going to bed, she’ll remind me to take my evening meds. Then, just before I am about to turn off the light, she’ll come into my room, lean over, and give me a quick, barely-there kiss.
After she leaves, I’ll lie in the dark and think about the small group of family and friends I’ve gathered under my borrowed roof, peopling a life I have often found difficult to bear but that right now, at least, seems like one worth claiming. I root around in my head for the usual sense of insufficiency, a clamorous lack waiting to be filled, but, for the time being, anyway, it is nowhere to be found.
The room feels cozy and I pull the fluffy comforter closer around me against the pleasant chill of the AC. Tomorrow presents itself as a glimpse of sun and water, hours to read in, shared meals and wandering conversation. As my eyelids start to droop, I suddenly recall a favorite line of poetry, by Charles Olson: “I have had to learn the simplest things / last. Which made for difficulties.”
Whoever thought I’d be this close to happy?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A book such as this draws on material that is inherently difficult and on aspects of myself that are inherently fragile. It has required the support and nurturance of any number of people, including some who’ve read early drafts of the manuscript. For their discerning assessment and input, I’d like to thank, first and foremost, Elaine Pfefferblit, who has been there from the original iteration many years ago to the final one; Carol Gilligan; Chip McGrath; Honor Moore; Deb Garrison; and Susan Squire.
For general life and writerly counsel, I extend my gratitude to Andy Port; Nessa Rapaport; Anne Roiphe; Jorie Graham; Dina Recanati; Joy Harris; Brenda Wineapple; Deborah Solomon; Jami Bernard; Bethanie Alhadeff; Lev Mendes; and Stephen Drucker.
Ileene Smith, my editor, has believed in my ability to finish this project despite rumors to the contrary. Over the years her probing questions and nuanced suggestions have been immeasurably helpful. Markus Hoffman, my agent, has been an invaluable source of both constructive criticism and unwavering encouragement. My publicists, Lottchen Shivers and Sandi Mendelson, have been persistent in their advocacy.
Closer to home, my two sisters, Dinah Mendes and Debra Gerber, have consistently urged me on despite what may be the fraught nature of the material. My assistant, Anne-Marie Mueschke, has valiantly kept me organized and proved to be a deft reader. My friend Alice Truax has helped me move beyond the darkness and realize my intentions with her unerring psychological instincts. Finally, there is my daughter, Zoë, who prefers not to read what I write, but whose infusions of love and wisdom keep me afloat.
ALSO BY DAPHNE MERKIN
FICTION
Enchantment
NONFICTION
The Fame Lunches: On Wounded Icons, Money, Sex, the Brontës, and the Importance of Handbags
Dreaming of Hitler: Passions & Provocations
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daphne Merkin is a former staff writer for The New Yorker and a regular contributor to Elle. Her writing frequently appears in The New York Times, Bookforum, Departures, Travel + Leisure, W, Vogue, Tablet Magazine, and other publications. Merkin has taught writing at the 92nd Street Y, Marymount College, and Hunter College. Her previous books include Enchantment, which won the Edward Lewis Wallant Award for best novel on a Jewish theme, and two collections of essays, Dreaming of Hitler and The Fame Lunches, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She lives in New York City. You can sign up for email updates here.
Thank you for buying this
Farrar, Straus and Giroux ebook.
To receive special offers, bonus content,
and info on new releases and other great reads,
sign up for our newsletters.
Or visit us online at
us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup
For email updates on the author, click here.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Acknowledgments
Also by Daphne Merkin
A Note About the Author
Copyright
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
18 West 18th Street, New York 10011
Copyright © 2017 by Daphne Merkin
All rights reserved
First edition, 2017
Portions of this book originally appeared, in slightly different form, in The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Merkin, Daphne, author.
Title: This close to happy: a reckoning with depression / Daphne Merkin.
Description: First edition. | New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016025616 | ISBN 9780374140366 (hardback) | ISBN 9780374711917 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Merkin, Daphne—Mental health. | Postpartum depression—Treatment. | Postpartum depression—United States—Biography. | Depressed persons—Biography. | Women—Health and hygiene. | Psychotherapist and patient. | BISAC: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs.
Classification: LCC RG852 .M47 2017 | DDC 616.85/270092 [B]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016025616
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.
www.fsgbooks.com
www.twitter.com/fsgbooks • www.facebook.com/fsgbooks