Candles in the rain.

Lay down, lay down, lay it all down
Let your white birds smile At the ones who stand and frown
Some came to sing, some came to pray
Some came to keep the dark away

This is not a blog post about a controversial war in a foreign country, so why am I using Melanie's song to ground my thoughts here?  I don't know. I don't know.  I've listened to her voice a lot lately.  Maybe I'm writing about internal wars, within ourselves. When I hear the song, I think:  Don't be like me! Don't make your story my story.  Rewrite a beautiful story, and know something else is out there, and this can't be it.  This can't be it. There is a cure for all that is hurting and damaging you now.  Darkness is lit with light.  Of course.  

Yet, I want to be dead... no, I just don't want to be alive.  I want to disappear, stop existing...  I want to blow out the candle, and somehow, I wish I that could happen in a way that no one would miss me or care.  

What is sadness?  Is it different for all people?  Is it darkness?  Yeah... I know sadness.  I don't need someone to tell me what it's all about.  I know it.
I know it.
I know it.


For some people it's a deep and biting emotion, ripping them apart; for others, it's a cause for tears, yet hope for something better.  It can mean empathy. It can mean sympathy.  

For me, it's emptiness.  It's nothing.  It's nothingness. It's apathy.  It's not even a feeling; it's an absence of feeling.  

I'd rather cry.  I want to cry when there is a reason to mourn.  I'd rather cry and feel pain when there is a cause for sadness... Because fading into numbness is like being inhuman.  It makes me feel less human.  Emotions are human.  I want to feel everything, even if it's pain.

And what excuse do I have for my numbness and fucked up head, anyway? And I want to know the why and how, and not just accept things as they are and "how they will always be." Why can't I just meditate PMDD out of my body and brain?  Why can't I stop thinking about it, and then have it just go away?  I don't know... It always helped to know when it would start, and when it would end.  It was a way to prepare myself and then know relief was on the way.  I've actually tried ignoring the calendar and just wishing it away, or wishing it would not be this day or that day, but it didn't work.  It's not a placebo effect.  I wish it were.  

I always want to blame PMDD.  It is easy to use as a label: I have PMDD, so I'm fucking sad, or numb, or a bitch sometimes. But, deep down, I don't like excuses.  I don't like labels.  Depression isn't a death sentence. I've always known this.  Why is PMDD different?  There are some things that help people, even if they are drastic.  I could get my insides taken out... all the reproductive organs.  That's the last line of treatment.  Nothing else has worked yet.  I'm scared to go through menopause when I feel like I'm still a kid.  I'm not so old.  I know I am, but I don't feel it.

We were so close, there was no room

We bled inside each other's wounds
We all had caught the same disease
And we all sang the songs of peace

And I'm in darkness, now.  I let stress trigger worse symptoms and bring me lower and darker.  Am I weak for letting a person bring me to this place, and take so much away from me?  I am black against the night. The rain is soaking my hair and permeating my skin.  My candle...

I spent a life of caring about people and humanity and the world, and then I stopped caring about anything. All I wanted to do was help people.  That was why I wanted to be a teacher.  I would never work in a field that wasn't helping people in a significant way.  Now I do nothing.  It all came crashing down around me and I stopped feeling angry, or sad.  I just stopped feeling.

So raise candles high
'Cause if you don't we could stay black against the night
Oh, raise them higher again
And if you do we could stay dry against the rain

Melanie's voice has this tremble, and roughness as the song progresses... and there is sadness that penetrates my thoughts. She sounds sad, but hopeful.  She asks us to raise our lights high...  to do what you can to not fade into darkness.  She wrote the song after performing at Woodstock, seeing the sea of candles in the crowds, and because in 1969 she and her peers were amongst the horror and quagmire that was the Vietnam War.  

We were so close, there was no room
We bled inside each other's wounds
We all had caught the same disease
And we all sang the songs of peace

So raise candles high
'Cause if you don't we could stay black against the sky
Oh, oh, raise them higher again
And if you do we could stay dry against the rain

I don't want to stay black against the sky.  I don't want to be drenched in novocaine and denial.  I don't want to hide behind a numbness that is comfortable and easy for me to fall into.  It's my deep, dark, wet well.  I sit at the bottom and cover my face.  I don't even have a candle down there.  The lack of oxygen would not allow it to light.  I would need someone to drop one down to me.  And I would need to strike a match with my heart and to raise it up, as far as I could reach and hope the flame stayed burning and someone would see it in the darkness of the pit that is depression.  

Lay down, lay down, lay it all down
Let your white birds smile
At the ones who stand and frown

Lay down, lay down, lay it all down
Let your white birds smile
At the ones who stand and frown