GEORGIA - on my mind

Time creeps at this petty pace, long past midnight. I stare at ceiling fan blades. They turn, mindless and endless as every passing day. Outside open windows, the cul-de-sac tucks in to sleep. Tomorrow’s to-do lists written and checked twice. Wake. Coffee. Commute. Work. E-mail. Lunch. Act busy. E-mail. Commute. Wine. Eat. T.V. Sleep. Repeat. In six hours, school buses, garbage trucks, repair vans, leaf-blowers, and lawn mowers will blast off. I’m in, but not of, that outside world. In four short months, I’ve seen my last parent die; been laid off with no notice and watched my grown son’s drug addiction deepen into suicidal rage and hatred toward me. I ended a serial relationship with an ex, yet again. Beyond depressed, I google new mental illnesses to add to my resume and study ads for more drugs. Bi-Polar, Borderline Personality? Sure, but where’s the mania? I’m as inert as a dead slug. I check out luxury rehabs I can’t afford. Check out cheap rehabs I can’t afford. Take a pointless depression quiz and check off 10 out of 20 life events – any ONE of which can trigger major clinical depression. TEN. All in a few months. Is there any help out there, a voice in the void? Is that too much to ask? I dial the Suicide Hotline. Like Peter denied Jesus, they rejected me three times. First, I’m on hold 10 minutes. I should’ve pressed the “1” option for veterans. I hang up. Second, I get a live human. Jackpot. But before I launched into life event number four, I noticed the ghostly silence of a dropped call that made me long for the days when slamming a receiver into a phone cradles made a real statement. On my third redial, the voice, if there was one, trailed off and simply vanished in the night. Like Rodney Dangerfield, I get no respect. Again, I gaze at the ceiling fan of doom, sliding into a self-pity sinkhole when… BOOM! CRASH! BAM! A wild-eyed swamp savage, wrapped in a towel, bursts down my door. With Category 5 force, it churns, ricochets off furniture and walls. Long wet hair spirals out to drench every surface in a stunning path of destruction. What the hell? Wait. Could this be Savannah, that 19-year-old daughter down the hall – so quiet, unassuming and no trouble at all? This one’s gone berserk. Like a Zen Master’s stick whacks a meditator’s shoulder to shock a drifting mind to the present moment, she’s fractured my own despair. “Mommy!” She shrieks, confirming her identity. “I washed my hair and a million bugs crawled out on the towel!” She rakes nails down a flamingo-pink neck rash that doctors had misdiagnosed as Eczema, Poison Ivy, Psoriasis and the all-purpose default – stress. Are med students so focused on high-dollar specialty degrees that they ignore the lowly lice? This called for immediate triage. I slung a kimono over my shorty pajamas and threw a yellow rain slicker around her dripping shoulders. We sped to the 24-hour CVS. I cleared the shelves of every Extra Strength Nix-Nit, Rid-X and Nit-Witch, then raced back home to comb infested tangles till the sky pinked into morning. As I fell into bed, I heard Gongzu, the Shih-tzu next door, yapping and leashed up for her pre-dawn stroll. My fitful sleep was soon broken. Hyper alert, dazed in post-traumatic shock, Savannah hovered over me, a reproachful Rapunzel dangling frazzled strands of dark hair inches from my weary eyes. “They. Are. Not. Gone. I need professional treatment. Get up.” Treatment? If professional help for suicidal depression is damned-near impossible, did she really expect a Lice Rehab on every corner? Apparently, she did. Up all night googling advanced lice management, she stumbled on Lice Ladies, an establishment in a strip mall less than five miles away. Again behind the wheel, I squint through bright sun and lunch hour traffic, envisioning frantic moms pounding doors with hysterical schoolkids in tow. But Lice Ladies was low-key, welcoming. Far less chaotic than the We Nail You salon on any Saturday afternoon. Less terrifying than European Wax: Luxury Awaits. In an hour, Lyn, our Lice Ladies specialist, instructed us on the life and times of lice – what they are, how they survive and how they die. She entertained us with common misperceptions and amusing anecdotes. No need to burn sheets, fumigate rooms, euthanize pets, quarantine the victim or sell the house. “Head lice are wingless parasites,” she said. “They feed on human blood and spend their whole life on the human scalp. Yes, they’re highly contagious, but extremely common, relatively harmless and easily treated. After they leave the human head, they die within two hours, left to their own non-existent food source.” I now knew enough to become a certified lice-ologist. “I’m unemployed, could I get a job here?” I asked, only half joking. Compared to my last boss, lice soundedloveable. Lyn and Natalie, her partner, were angels of mercy, true community servants who soothe frenetic moms and kids. After efficiently de-lousing Savannah, Lyn checked my own hair. Miraculously, I was clean. Due to the TEN major life events, not counting this one, I hadn’t spent much quality time with my daughter lately. Before this crisis, I’d almost forgotten who she was. As my one well-adjusted, near-normal family member, she’d become disenfranchised. I’m ashamed to say that I’d been less than nurturing, prompting her recent remark: “I don’t think motherhood is your forte.” That hurt. But, well…she’s right. I should try harder. “Let’s go to Steak ‘N Shake,” I suggested a mother-daughter lunch, where I steered the topic back to more important matters – me – and my ongoing angst. “You know Zoya, my therapist? She’s having a Shamanic Healing Ritual weekend in September, at Tallulah Gorge. At the very least, I need grief counseling, A.A., Al-Anon.” She ignored that, wolfing down a plate of chilli cheese fries. I persisted. “What do you think I should do, Savannah?” “I think,” she said, licking each of her cheesy fingers, “you should thank god you don’t have blood-sucking bugs in your hair and get a life.” Wow. Lice treatment is empowering. She’d taken responsibility, having alerted her 8,300 Facebook friends of her condition. The kids stayed remarkably calm. But the parents! You’d think she’d launched a suburban super-strain of Ebola, Leprosy and Bubonic Plague combined. I expected one particularly paranoid dad to post an “UNCLEAN” sign on our door and report us to the Centers for Disease Control. I’m grateful to those lice, for the lessons they taught. Like lice, Depression is a blood-sucking parasite, extremely common and highly contagious. Unlike lice, Depression is not harmless, easily cured or treated with over-the-counter remedies or a nearby Depression Ladies service. Some days those nattering nits of negativity will just party on, Dude, inside my head. Those lice helped me find an unexpected therapy. Action and love. After de-infestation and cheese fries, I treated Savannah to a haircut and a shopping spree of anything she wanted, while I bought dark candles for spellcasting. For the first time in months, we spent a whole day together and had fun. When she needed my help, I forced myself to act, and by helping my daughter, I healed a piece of myself.