Crabwalk

Depression returns, more mild than before but certainly rooted in my psyche. I sleep reluctantly and wake up just as unwillingly. Last night I was like Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five, unstuck in time, going back and forth through my life and revisiting with vivid, crystal clarity moment after moment from the past that stick like shards of cut glass in my mind. None of them is a happy memory, because all the events and promises end badly or just wither away to this disappointing desert that is my life currently. And most are vicious memories, deep gashes in the soul itself; I find myself choked with rage at betrayals of the heart from ten years ago. Sleep when it came was plagued by oddly terrifying and detailed nightmares in which pairs of crabs fought, their big claws knocking and scraping with hard stony sounds against their carapaces as they skittered like spiders up the walls and under furniture. I was afraid for my bare toes. I'm reading Overcoming Life's Disappointments, by Rabbi Harold Kushner, and every page is like a reprimand rather than a comfort. Courage means not scaring others. It's strange how we fear death even when we don't care about life.