The Face of Depression

A little over a week ago, I stood in the dim light of my bedroom, shaking my head.  Disorganized jumbles of junk lay strewn across any available hard surface, Across the floor, a two-foot high by four-foot long pile of dirty laundry was expanding into the closet, and the floor was gritty from kitty litter having repeatedly been tread into the room for I don't know how long.  Dirty tissue balls laid haphazardly beside my side of the bed, which hadn't seen fresh sheets since the new year, and clean clothes lay crumpled on top of the other side of the bed. An overflowing wastebasket finished the scene. I didn't dare open the curtains - someone might see the pigsty my private space had become.  

I turned around once again, and sighed quietly to myself, shaking my head.  "This is what the face of depression looks like," I thought, then started to do what I could to shovel some of worst of the trash into a paper sack before the deep cleaning housecleaners showed up. I threw the the comforter over the sheets to keep the cats off where I actually slept, shoved the laundry into three overflowing laundry baskets, and looked around.  The piles of clean clothes were still on the bed, so I hastily dumped them into any drawer that had space.  I knew it was hopeless, but I put as much effort as I could into making it presentable.

I'd spent the day before trying to do the same to the living room and dining room.  There were so many cardboard boxes piled up in the dining room it was almost impossible to get to the sliding glass door.  I just didn't have the energy to take all those boxes downstairs and into the already overpacked, disorganized garage. I stacked a bunch outside on the balcony, against the wall, protected from the worst of the wind and rain by the no-longer-working gas grill that I still needed to figure out a way to get down three stories without trampling through the house.  

The boxes and bags that held the Christmas decorations were square in the middle of the floor, on the same shape carpet as in my room, but punctuated with dark stains where one cat or another had hacked something up.  Sometimes I had remembered to clean it. Sometimes, I hadn't. The sofa cushions, squashed and misshapen from too many years of too many heavy people sitting on them, were covered in cat hair, and an occasional bit of snot from when one of the cats sneezed.  The kitchen, always my happy place, was worst of all.  The counters were covered in dirty dishes, and the floor had not seen the working side of a mop in over five years. I think I'd only "swiffered" it maybe once or twice.  It too bore the splats of what happens when you have three cats and no one to brush them.  I certainly couldn't.  The last time I tried, I couldn't breathe for two days. The whole of the house seemed to reflect my inner battle with the depression demons.

I heard a truck pull up, then a knock at the door, and went to the top of the stairs to watch my housemate open the door so that the owner of the deep cleaning service and her three able-bodied assistants could come in, bringing the tools of their trade with them. Mops & buckets, rags & vacuums, wood polish, bathroom cleaner, and who knows what all else. They were here to deep clean the whole house. Top to bottom.  We'd been quoted a fixed price and told they would be staying until the job was done. I was wondering if they would need a dinner break before it was over.  We went over again what we needed, then both of us retreated while one person started on the kitchen, another started on the middle bedroom, and probably the other two went to see what disaster lie in wait for them in the bathrooms.  

I retreated with the cats to my office/studio, closed the door, and let them work. Once the middle bedroom was finished, we could move the cats into there, and let them have at my studio.  They were under strict orders not to touch anything on my art table, so of course I had the whole table covered with the paint tubes, ink bottles, and other messy objects that one would expect to be there.

Six and a half hours later, the house was clean.  As I stepped out of the middle bedroom and let the cats out (finally!), it was like a scene from a Disney movie, after the fairy godmother waved her wand, and all the dingy dreary things disappeared. The sofa still needed new cushions, but they'd fluffed them the best they could, and vacuumed them to get the cat hair off.  The carpet looked and felt cleaner.  No kitty litter grit anywhere.  The owner had coaxed me to give her a clean set of sheets for my bed, and in addition to changing my sheets, she had put all the little pillows that I had precariously balanced on my hope chest on the the bed as well.  The curtains were pushed back, revealing clean windows and a beautiful view of the ocean.  All the laundry had been moved downstairs to the laundry room. My bathroom looked and smelled great.  And the kitchen - oh my, the kitchen.  The floor was spot free, as were the counters and the sink.  And the microwave practically sparkled.

The dishwasher was running; they had managed to get most of the dishes from the counter into the it.  The dead plant was gone.  The paper bags were neatly organized. The kitchen table was junk-free, and she had found a melmac serving tray and put all the coffee stuff on it so the ground beans wouldn't get all over the rest of the area like before.  Everywhere there were clean windows, dust-free surfaces, and grit-free carpet.  It was my house as I remembered it again. A place I could be proud of, and have friends over without having to apologize, and.... and.... and....  My housemate paid them (as was our agreement - I paid her, she paid them), and I went back upstairs.  

I stood in my clean-again kitchen for a good long while, smiling, then did the same in my room and in my bathroom.  Everything was clean.  It was as if I was being given another chance to make things right with myself.  I felt better than I had in a long time. Not wanting to mess up our spotless kitchen, we went out for dinner, then I took a shower in my newly cleaned bathroom, and crawled into my bed with the newly clean sheets on it.  In the back of my head something clicked.  I had reached the bottom and I was now starting the way up again.  Fighting depression is never easy, and it wasn't going to be an easy battle. But now that I could be happy in my house again, I knew I had to keep going. I needed to make the changes to me that I'd been putting off as well. It wasn't going to be easy, but I was in it for the long haul.  And as anyone can tell you, I can be very persistent when I want to be.