April 2013 Is the Cruelest Month

I have been struggling this month my friends. Struggling to write, struggling to exercise. Many days I'm struggling to get out of bed, though insomniac tossing and turning allows no comfort. It's not exactly a state secret that I war with depression now and again. In addition to emotional ennui's position as the cliched birthright of the author, it's been a full frontal assault and I haven't enough weapons.

The weather is enough to engender a Midwestern Seasonal Affective Disorder pandemic. I saw a Facebook status morning that neatly summed it up, "We've having a lovely winter this spring." Keen observation of the air's lingering chill aside, it really hasn't been lovely at all, has it? My fellow Chicagoans will perhaps join me in observing that it isn't often we can call in "rain" to the office. Yet last week Thursday morning, that's just what a majority of students and workers were forced to do. Mother Nature assailed us with up to eight inches of precipitation in slightly above 24 hours. I have never seen such a sustained downpour, but I was safe and warm in my apartment. The thousands still grappling with flooded basements and ruined memories are the source of my sorrow.

Then we have the terrorism, ricin letters, explosions and public executions which are becoming the stuff of daily domestic headline. It's not Tel Aviv in 1984. It's Boston in 2013 replete with high speed chases, car jackings and robberies. Honestly, I am more comfortable than ever with my decision to remain childless this month. I don't want to have to explain this broken, deadly partisan and cruel society to anyone. We're hyperconnected yet increasingly isolated, more mercenary than Gordon Gekko could have imagined. And we're being led down the rabbit hole by national leaders who cannot pass reforms approved by 90 percent of Americans, laws designed to make purchasing an instrument of death slightly more challenging than obtaining cold medicine

This pungent month does not want to stop at threatening weather and dysfunctional, destructive events that make one assume a whimpering fetal position. Nope. On top of the regular global warming and existential human questions, myself and many of my loved ones have been gifted with disquieting personal challenges. I can say for myself that my romantic partner was injured and rushed to the hospital earlier this week in an industrial accident, which included a total information blackout and mindless race to his side that stopped the world for an hour (mercifully, JC is going to be fine). I've undergone tremendous professional upheaval and today, April 25, marks the four-year anniversary of the premature death of my high school mate, Jesika Thompson. My best friend lost an egregiously short 17-day battle with ovarian cancer at the age of 30 and while we share many happy memories, none of us who loved her will ever be the same.

I am not trying to justify my lethargy. It's there whether I want it or not, and honestly, I'd prefer the distraction of the constant movement to which I'm accustomed. By my mind and spirit are trapped under multi-ton boulders this month and it's making it hard to breathe.

I realize that the simple transition to May has no direct correlation with the shift in toxic anti-mojo I desperately desire. On behalf of myself and the Newtown families, the Boston bombing victims and their loved ones and everyone else facing an exhausting cluster of defiance this month, the movement of a couple dates promises no release. But let's try it anyway, shall we?