Catholic, Gay, and Feeling Fine, Thanks
On my 17th visit to my therapist, marking nearly a year with her, she asks me, What do you think has changed? I could truthfully answer: No longer frantic and empty Like a cat Tied to a stick That’s driven into Frozen winter sh★t1 But I don’t listen to Radiohead very often anymore, and that’s…
The other day, because I’m not used to dealing with life without tobacco (12 days so far, whee!) and because I ran out of my meds accidentally that morning (I’ve got some more now) and because sometimes things are just a lot to take, I found myself sitting in my cubicle and looking at my…
Here are four axioms for your consideration. 1. Misery is not necessarily an indication that you are not doing the will of God. Sometimes we suffer because we are doing the wrong thing and going in the wrong direction. On the other hand, sometimes suffering is a sign that the devil is displeased and wants…
That God exists and that He is good, I have no doubt. But I don’t know what His goodness means. Some time ago, my old friend R. left the Church. She left because, she said, the pressure of trying to make her everyday experience, all things manifold and strange and painful and joyful and contradictory,…
I’m at my friend C.’s lakeside cabin in Maine. We have done nothing the past three days besides eat, sleep, talk, and swim a little. He is here on a sort of retreat from his life, and my situation is similar. Good place for it. Sitting on the deck, we hear the sounds of water,…
I told you I wasn’t going to do this. I also told myself and a whole bunch of other people that I wasn’t going to do this. But I did it: I got myself a prescription for some happiness pills. They are small and white and oval and I take one every morning at nine…
Question: What do depression and lust have in common? Quick answer: everything. But wait, lust is fun, and depression isn’t! Lust is when there’s something you want to think about but shouldn’t, and depression is when there’s something you don’t want to think about but can’t help it. Right? Sort of. I remember being sixteen1…
It’s spring, and I am rediscovering the pleasures of the coffee shop patio. A table over, three old Russians scratch lottery tickets. Two tables over, a man enthusiastically discusses his plans for a new kind of porn website (“classy; not like Hustler. That’s just how I was raised…how do you feel about photography?”). A group…
[Welp, no way to write this post without worrying my mother. But really, I'm fine, just had a harrowing day or two a while back. And I took notes!] A good1 depression, like a good virus, is a master of self-perpetuation. Its primary job is to attack various systems in the host; but its secondary…
No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief, More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring. Comforter, where, where is your comforting? Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?1 It was bad, dear readers, very bad. I spent last night in the lowest parts of the pit, and all day today the…
