Thanksgiving

We had a fairly nice Thanksgiving. In many ways, we did. The morning was lazy and happy, and Forest, Kirstin and I rambled out the door in plenty of time to get to Sean's house and help fix an early dinner.

Upon arrival, though, Forest received some bad news, and proceeded to retreat into a deep depression, which basically resulted in my feeling completely removed from him for about two days. When he's that low, he doesn't want a lot of closeness, because he doesn't feel like he's good company. I think somehow the idea of sharing that darkness with me only makes him more depressed. On one hand I'm glad he doesn't put on 'fake' faces for me and cover his feelings. (That's what he did with our families.) On the other hand, sometimes I wish that I were wonderful enough and bright and shining enough to make all the dark, bad things go away and bring back his warm companionship again.

I realize that I want my cake and I want to eat it, too. One of the things I love about Forest is that he actually FEELS things, right down to the bottom of his heart. He loves me so much, so truly and so deeply that I can feel it in my soul. He's capable of amazing, wonderful highs, and occasionally rhapsodizes about me, our relationship, and how happy we make each other. (I do the same thing.) He's honest with me all the time, and tells me exactly what he feels.

Of course a person who is capable of such an amazingly deep range of emotions is also capable of the darker side of them. When he's down, he's DOWN. The world just crushes him, and he seems to have no life left behind his eyes. I grieve for him, I cry for him, and I'd do ANYTHING to make the hurting stop.

At least I have the comfort of knowing that soon enough, it will go away. It's a natural part of being with a person who is in touch with his own emotions.

It did, however, make for a rather uncomfortable Thanksgiving. He faked the smiles and the laughter for our families, and I saw right through it. It resonated strangely with me, because he and I are usually one entity socially; but in this case it left me with a feeling of falsehood behind my own demeanor. It was a pretty strange experience.

We had dinner and played cards at Sean's house until it was time to go to my mother's. Forest barely talked on the ride there, and eventually fell asleep, which is one of his preferred methods of dealing with depression. It's not like you would expect; he doesn't feel more tired or lethargic than usual; he just decides he's going to crawl in a hole and turn himself off for a while, and that's exactly what he does. It really does seem to work pretty well for him. (Sometimes I wish I could just 'decide' to go to sleep like that.)

My sisters and Jim were at my mom's house with us, and soon enough we settled in for a relaxing evening with them. Forest, Jim, and Sam retreated to the basement, where they sipped beer and watched Minnesota and Dallas play football in the rain. I joined them for a while, happy to find that Forest was in the mood to cuddle me a bit. Who knew that he'd find time with the guys in front of a game to be comforting? Well, at any rate, I stayed with the gentlemen for most of the day, while my rather anxious mom waited for the self-timing turkey's timer to 'Pop'.

The turkey was quite late, but I was glad, because by the time dinner was ready, I was really hungry again. Dinner was great, and I enjoyed the easy, relaxed companionship of my nearest family. I really like to spend time with them. I still felt a bit of falseness, and knew Forest was feeling pretty low. His usual level of random affection just wasn't there. I missed it. I found myself sitting right next to him at the table and realizing how much I'd missed him all afternoon. It's crazy, isn't it?

I have to accept that the dark, quiet, isolated sad parts of Forest are as much 'Him' as the affectionate, loving, open and silly person I spend most of my days with. I don't see the dark side of him very often; but I need to learn that he's the same person, even then. When he's depressed, he's still my sweety; I know it on a conscious level, but I need to teach my heart not to pine for him when he's sitting right next to me. It's just plain wrong.

I did the best I could to deal with the situation, and as soon as we got home, we tumbled into bed, where I didn't pester him too much with snuggling. On his worst days, Forest doesn't feel much like cuddling, but he still gives me kisses good night and reassures me that he loves me. I can definitely deal with that.

He had a terrible, awful, no-good, very-bad day on Friday, but that was to be expected. He started out the day depressed, then worked open to close at Olga's, which was absolultely slammed with holiday shoppers. I spent Friday at home, cleaning the hell out of my house. Mostly I did about 20 loads of laundry, and put it all away. I stored all the summer clothes and put the winter ones in the drawers. (It's been snowy for over a week, I guess I have to crack down and do it.) Poor Kirstin was bored stiff with me, and ended up going to my mom's to play in the hot tub and relax. I thought about joining her, but in the end, duty prevailed, and I figured that if my poor sweety was putting in a day of absolute hell, I could at least do some damn work at home.

By the time I picked Forest up on Friday night, I think he was too tired to be depressed anymore; which I guess is sort of a good thing.