Ok, yeah, the reviews haven’t been all that kind. But do we care? No way, no how. I just hope Pa has his shirt off for a good portion of the show. That’s really the best part. Hard workin’ man sweat.

I think I need to lie down.

After he left, I finished The Help. And then, for a bit, I just sat there feeling sorta bummed that it was over. Now, that’s what I consider a good book – one that can make me feel like I’m missing my friends after it’s been returned to shelf. Oh, Ms. Aibileen. Please come sit in my kitchen and tell me stories. And that caramel cake I kept reading about? If you could put some of that RIGHT HERE IN MY MOUTH, it’d be appreciated.

Someone commented asking what I thought of the ending and I’ll say this, I thought it was appropriate. I was worried it would be a little too tidy or patronizing, but it wasn’t. At least not for me. Man, I really dug that book.

If you loved The Help, please tell me what to read next. I need more book friends!

A Footnote

I’ve been thinking about this for an hour or so and I’ve decided I would like to address K’s comment on the previous post. K suggests I “get a life.” Clearly,  I took for granted that people understood by now, in 2010, that depression isn’t really something you just, you know, grow a sack and get over. Nor is it something that’s indicative of weakness. Frustrating? Yes. Really, really hard to understand sometimes? Oh, yes. But something some semi-humorous Billy Crystal flick from the 90′s is supposed to fix? Please.

In talking it over with my sister-in-law, who also suffers from depression, we decided that even if it were something you could just get over, saying that to someone shows a distinct failure in the compassion department. If you told me you had a paper cut – and boy, does it sting – I would not tell you to get over it. Get your feelings hurt? Break the heel on your shoe? Drop your iPhone in a sink full of dishes? “Get over it” is the answer to NONE of those things. Not to anyone who doesn’t want to die alone surrounded by cat fur and wine bottles.

I have always taken great comfort that, regardless of the emotionexpressed, you can look in the comments section of this blog and see the words, “I know how you feel.” We’re all so different. But we’ve also all felt the same at one time or another. Yes, things have been a little less perky around here lately, but sometimes life isn’t perky. Hills and valleys. It’s the hip-hip-hooray and woe-is-me that make me human. And I’m gonna go ahead and relish that. Because it’s honest.

I’m reading on the couch, entombed in an enormous down comforter when he comes into the office with a basket of laundry.

“What? No. Of course not.”

“I get the feeling lately that I’m not making you happy.”

It didn’t just squeeze my heart to hear him say that – all of my insides contracted and my tongue stuck in my mouth. I’d been feeling like this for some time. Down. Sundays are the worst, the most unbearable, because all I do is think about going back to work the next morning. Sometimes I pray they’ll fire me, though I’ve never given them a reason. There are so many days when I feel like tearing at my own skin, screaming inside my skull that I want out. Out, out, out! Out of being a grown up. Out of hating what I do and where I am for ten hours a day because I have to. But not out of my almost-marriage. Never that. And it fills me with regret and grief that he’s blaming himself. So I tell him what I’ve been too embarrassed to say,

“I think I’m just depressed.”

My voice betrays more emotion than I’d intended. It’s not just the admission, it’s that there’s a part of me asking him to love me anyway. Love me even though I’m a little bit broken right now.

I say something about work and even though he knows, maybe he didn’t know how some mornings, it’s all I can do not to get sick over it. Standing there, waiting for the shower to get hot, nauseated and head aching. I don’t like problems I can’t fix. And for all my trying, I’ve failed to improve this situation. He knows. I don’t have to tell him how hard I’m trying. The interviews. The build up. The let down. We’re in this together, chasing the same goal and squinting, watching the light at the end of the tunnel grow slowly from a tiny splinter. What size is it now? Bigger than a breadbox? I think, yes.

“I wish I could make it better,” he says, and I sigh before smiling.

But, now I have. And I’m telling you that I’m absolutely filled with resentment that I’m at work right and not at home finishing The Help. It’s good. Really good. Between that and Season 3 of Mad Men, well, if the Dork Lord hadn’t intervened this weekend and insist we leave the house for stuff like grocery shopping and Mother’s Day, I’d still be having a dress rehearsal for shut-in cat lady. 

Did I mention there are brownie bites at home? THERE ARE BROWNIE BITES AT HOME, for pete’s sake!

Update: Well, now I can confirm it, should anyone need to be reassured. It was, in fact, pretty public knowledge. As published on Lindsayism.com,