Day Three: I find it interesting that I had such drama when I lived here in Iowa, because really, Iowa is a very undramatic state. It is a quiet place, a place with little crime, where neighbors are neighborly and the words “milquetoast” is actually used to describe university students. Compare this to Tucson, where police officers chasing men with guns have stopped by my place to ask, rather casually, if I saw an armed man running down the street? Or did I hear gunshots? Yeah? Which direction, do you think? Okay, thank you ma’am, you have a nice day now.
That’s not even the best story — about 2 weeks after we moved into our house the FBI stopped by looking for a former resident. We had already found bullets in the walls when we took the paneling off, and one had to wonder; were those from the person the FBI was searching for? Or was there more than one nutjob in the joint?
Anyway, sometime last month we heard the police chasing and shouting “Stop! Police!” and our reaction was to turn up the sound on the television. Next thing you know we’ll be passing an old lady getting mugged and just stop and tie our shoes.
I appreciate un-drama now more than I did 12 years ago, and at this point in my life I’ve come to realize that I often create my own drama. I hate boredom, and what better to alleviate the ennui than to get crazy drunk and spend my hangover under the bushes in front of my workplace?
This last summer I stopped taking Zoloft, an act that caused several side effects, one of which was rage and an inability to say anything but the truth. I lost a few friends during this time, and I discovered that there is a great divide among people about psychiatric drugs; on the one hand, there are some people that think that you should take the drugs and never go off. There are others that think taking the drugs is a weakness. I ended up in the middle, where I thought I should take the drugs so long as they were necessary, but that if I could honestly make it on my own I should stop taking them. Of course, nobody agreed with me, because I didn’t support either side. Figures.
Taking psychiatric drugs is often compared to taking drugs for diabetes; along those lines, I think some people have a serious mental illness that never goes away, and they need to take medication every single day for the rest of their life, just like Type 1 diabetics. However, I also think that there are some people who become depressed for other reasons, and they may need the drugs temporarily but the illness can be corrected — much like Type II diabetics, who can correct the problem with diet and exercise.
I personally have had periods in my life where I have been extremely healthy, without drugs, and so I know that, for me, it is possible, I just have to figure out what kind of mental diet I need. This summer I realized that I was taking on too much stress, and that I was searching for drama, and these were overwhelming me mentally and the end result was a kind of exhausted depression. The first thing I had to do was give up some stressors — this included my job, and luckily I was able to quit without financial ruin — but I also had to stop looking for drama. I had to find a quiet life, and accept that it was okay if I did the same thing on Tuesday that I did on Monday. This was very hard for me, but I have embraced it, and I am finding new friends — slowly. Because I am taking everything very slowly.
So, at this period of my life, I really appreciate being here in Iowa, where taking it slowly is a kind of state creed. I liked the fact that the lady who took the money for my breakfast this morning stopped to talk to my kids — like she just had the time, even though she was working, and why not stop and talk to the little people? I had lunch with my long-time friend Seth, and our “lunch” lasted a few hours and included a tour of the university. For that matter, a maintenance guy in the elevator said howdy and talked to my kids, too, even though he was a complete stranger. Like Snook on “It’s a Big, Big World,” Iowa is the king of slow.
Kinda nice, really.
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