Three dead people live with me.
 
I don’t think about them much, unless I’m in the basement, alone, searching for something stuffed in some corner on some shelf. Two of them I’ve never met, and yet they are my burden. 
 
They don’t frighten me, though I’ll admit to startling when I bump the side of a black rectangle box about the size of a football. What they do is make me existentially morose.
 
They had lives and loves and cares and woes and tears and passions and pains and joys, that I know nothing of and that my husband barely recalls. You see, they are his grandparents— my mother-in-law’s parents. And also his father, though I knew him, but not well.

Will I wind up in some box in some woman’s basement someday with a name that only registers because it is the same as her own now?
 
But it is more than the recognition of my own insignificance and mortality that depresses me. It is the fact I must determine what to do with these long dead that sends me to the furthest depths of futility.
 
Why. Why does this fall to the woman? Why have I allowed myself to take these ashes? Why is it somehow expected? We women have a long history of taking care of both the quick and the dead, which can be beautiful and life-giving. Yet when it is forced, when it is subconsciously delegated, when one’s mother-in-law has two sons who never had to lift a finger for themselves in a society where it is the women who arrange things, and so when no woman is available, dead people stay in dusty basements, that is when I call foul.

My mother in law is fairly healthy, whip smart, but not exactly organized (again, her parents in boxes). But she’s nearing ninety. She has not, as they say, put her affairs in order. I was the one to find the estate attorney, to make the appointment I had no seat at, to discuss money she resents me having any say or control over once she is gone. So why do I do it? Why haven’t I learned the two little letters: no?
 
I grew up believing a woman could be and do anything she desired. And while, the essence of that is still true — being a woman does not make one inherently less human, less capable— I know it is not a sentiment I can share with my own daughter. All I have to do is look at the way our almost First Female President was, and continues to be, treated, even by those who claim the word feminist. All I have to do is see that my country chose a man who assaults, excoriates, and cages women, to lead us, to speak for us, to be our face to the globe. All I have to do is watch what this nation and these politicians did to a victim of sexual abuse who was brave enough to try and save us all from a Supreme Court with two sex offenders presiding.
 
This world is not a place for my child to be and do anything. Already her education has been curtailed by four boys—four in a class of twenty-nine—who disrupt learning to the point that the whole class has had to skip science, music, drama, math, because these boys are uncontrollable. These are not boys with special needs. They are white, privileged, smart, undisciplined. And yet it is the others in the class who must adjust themselves to accommodate these boys. My daughter brings noise canceling headphones to class, avoids certain play equipment at recess, and has nightmares. My daughter is the one we will be pulling out of this school. She bends, she breaks. But the boys go on “being boys,” growing up to be men who will still behave like their worst selves. Because we all make room for them.
 
My next novel is about Jezebel, from the Bible, a woman who was expected to keep her place, to mold to her spouse. She refused and was killed for it. And to this day three major religions dance on her grave. So perhaps it is her echo, the threat of joining these dead basement dwellers that keeps me chained to the patriarchy which still reigns in our progressive, contemporary society in my progressive, contemporary city. And my daughter doomed to repeat it.
 
So I sit with the ashes of dead strangers. With no answers. Just the gnashing of teeth.

By 2065, it's estimated that Facebook profiles of the dead will outnumber profiles of the living. I can’t be the only one who finds that unsettling.
 
When my friend Brent died in his sleep in 2005, Facebook was still a yacht-measuring contest on Ivy League campuses, and My Space was peopled by your cousin’s garage band and that dude in high-school who still plays D&D. 
​
The only way I could determine the truth of his passing was through word-of-mouth. Because I saw friends shaking in each other's arms, saw the cut-to-the-bone grief on the reddened faces of his family, because I baked cookies for his funeral, his death was made real.

​I had closure, if not healing. 

​But times have changed.
 
Last Saturday, my friend Jeff from high school died of a massive heart attack. We were in a comedy troupe together, and I’d seen him a handful of times since graduation. I followed him on Facebook as he became a talented visual artist. But my favorite memory of him was high school biology class.
 
There were four of us in this lab group. Three of them swirled about in the upper-echelons of popularity: a female soccer star; a male blonde-hair, blue-eyed, slightly tanned, dimpled paragon of Americana; and Jeff, a footballer, incredibly funny, and I believe voted part of the homecoming court.

And then there was me.

​Oh, I wasn’t dorky enough to be picked on, but I also wasn't part of their scene and thus generally not worth their time. Not in a malicious way, just in that way America (used to?) patronize Canada. Only noticed when pointed out. Or when they get cheaper epi-pens.
 
But Jeff would have none of this. Jeff treated me to the bear hug that was his personality, enfolding me in his graces without prejudice. And the rest of that lab group followed his lead – and maybe I did too. Maybe I had some assumptions about the “Heathers” of my high school that needed to be broken down by this jolly, kind, mass of teenager.
 
But, when Jeff died, unlike Brent, there was no closure, no reality of demise. And it's Facebook's fault.

​Because our adult relationship is mediated through digital means, and ultimately, being the Breakfast Clubby Gen-Xer that I am, digital is both real and unreal. And thus the fact of his death is both real and unreal as well.  

​Yes, a bunch of Jeff’s friends have posted heartfelt goodbyes on his FB page. Yes, many of us have changed our profile pictures to one of his art pieces. And yes, the stark post announcing the stopping of his heart and of his life is right there on his page. But the struggle to find closure, the struggle to truly believe he is gone, continues because his page continues.
 
Right there is a snarky political post from two days before he died - here he was tagged in a photo - over here, an ad for his upcoming art show…. He’s not gone, he’s just gone digital.
 
I hazard a guess Millennials feel differently – the whole “it’s not real until it’s Facebook real” would perhaps give them the closure I seek. And perhaps not. Perhaps there are swaths of we under 50's who are caught in the “denial” stage of grief, bouncing between it and depression, never able to reach acceptance, because our loved one’s are still staring us in the face…book. 

​There’s a fantastic episode of the show Black Mirror with Hayley Atwell where Atwell’s character encounters a new service that compiles all the digital data available on her dead loved one and is able, from that data, to produce a computerized voice version of that person, which the living person can then talk to on the phone. The “person” sounds just like the deceased, answers back with the same inflection, same inside jokes. I won’t spoil the ending, but on the surface, this seems like an appealing development. What I wouldn’t give to, say, hear my Nana laugh one more time.
 
And yet, what the episode explores, and what I’m puzzling with here, is whether, in the end, we are served by this immortalization or harmed by it. If we can’t ever move on from the space of denial and depression to acceptance, can we ever fully function in our every day lives again? And would our passed loved ones want us to remain in this purgatory?

​I still get random spam from Brent’s email address sometimes – his family either doesn’t know how, or doesn’t want, to shut down his account. I don’t know if I would have the strength to take one down of my husband or my child, either. It was bad enough deleting my Nana’s phone number – I wept openly, in public. But a page, a blog an Instagram? It would be like erasing them completely. Control-alt-deleting their existence.
 
And yet there can be a dignity in deletion. I know I wouldn’t want my social media preserved forever and ever amen. I’ve said and done some embarrassing, mundane, poorly executed and now all recorded, things in my life. I don’t want these cemented in the minds of my loved ones. Heck, I even cringe sometimes at the Facebook “memory” posts that pop up every day. Did I really say that? Did I really wear my hair like that? 

​Of course there’s the good stuff too, but just like having to go through a beloved’s belongings - their clothes, their trinkets - perhaps we should just save out the jewels of our social media lives too, like my grandpa’s old maroon sweater that after nearly thirty years I still wrap myself in on a rainy Sunday, or the charm bracelet of my Nana’s that I wear when I want to feel confident. Save out the very best, most special things, and let the rest, rest.

Every once in awhile I want to write back to those jarring emails from Brent. "How you doin' bud? We miss you down here." And I've been checking Jeff's page every day. Almost as if I'm checking to see if his death is still true, like watching Titanic and thinking this time the boat won't sink.



​But it always does, and they're both always still just as lost to me. 
 
I guess, in the end, I'll put my passwords in my will.

​I know this is dating myself, but I just had my first mammogram. Yes, I am saying publicly that I have breasts. Shocking, I know. And if I want to keep them, I must have them annually squashed like hand-therapy balls.
 
When the technician said, “It doesn’t hurt as much as they say,” while she compacted my left breast into a buckwheat pancake, it occurred to me that men would never put up with this. Especially if it involved something of a similarly stretchable consistency and integral to their idea of man-ness.
 
I’m of course talking about the penis.
 
If men had to put their members through what we women have to put our twins through, there would be a new mode of testing right quick.

,Imagine if you will, a room of cancer researchers deciding how to detect penile cancer (which is a real thing and I do not make light of it):

Guy A: We really want to make sure we can see all the tissue clearly…

Guy B: What about a normal X-ray? (Author’s note: This, by the way, is what they do for penises.)

Guy A: What if we stretched it out between two cold plates of glass and then slowly compressed it until it was wafer thin?

All Guys in Room: LOLOLOLOL

Guy A: LOL! Of course we’ll just do an x-ray!
 
Yes, all my researchers are men. Because, patriarchy.
 
But say Guy A wasn’t kidding. Say all men over 40 had to take a peniogramTM every year.

It might look something like this:

​Let’s call our patient, well, Dick.
 
Dick checks in for his peniogramtm, stating the reason for his visit in quiet tones, mildly embarrassed by the women in the waiting room giving him furtive glances over year-old Oprah magazines.
 
He sits, and surprisingly, only makes it through the ad section of Sport’s Illustrated before he’s called back. He’s mildly disappointed, because he wanted to read that one article on LeBron.
 
“Is this your first time?” The male technician says with a practiced, emotionless smile.
 
Dick nods and follows the tech to what could be a late 80’s Banana Republic dressing room.
 
“Take off your clothes and put on a robe…”

The tech walks away, then stops to shout back, nary a care for who might overhear.

​“Did you put on any lotions or Gold Balm down there?”
 
Dick, halfway behind his curtain, turns pale.
 
“If you did, just use the moist towelettes to clean yourself off.”
 
Dick obeys, unwrapping a one-by-one inch square of alcohol doused rice paper. He can’t quite decide to be proud that he needs seven of them to do the job, or if he should be concerned that his Buddy is recoiling into his body, turtle like.

​The machine whirrs to life.

“You might feel some slight pressure now.”

The tech is all business, as the glacial glass panels press tighter and tighter. Dick sucks in his breath.
 
“Don’t move!”
 
The machine clamps harder, flattening his noodle thinner than a Parisian crepe. Surely this machine will pull his penis off. No seriously, it is pulling his penis off. He will never have sex again. Or pee properly.
 
The machine beeps, releases.
 
“See, that wasn’t so bad.”
 
Are you m-fing kidding me?
 
“Three more to go!”

​Dick believes if the machine does not bite off his Johnson, it will fall off from frostbite. His testicles are already nowhere to be found. 
 
Finally, mercifully, the flattening is finished.
 
“You’ll be a little sore the rest of the day and maybe tomorrow.” The tech is too chipper.

Dick’s dick is twenty times more sore than when he went through puberty - and his whole drawer full of tube socks.
 
“And, just so you know, on your first time, they may call you back because they’re not used to what your tissue looks like.”
 
Yeah, that disease your best friend was just diagnosed with and just killed your other friend? The one that had two of your friends having preventative peniosectomies because their risk was so high and they have little kids and are frightened bald to leave them fatherless? That disease? We’re probably gonna f-up and make you think you have it for a week or so, just about the time your penis stops feeling like Mr. Gadget’s. But ya know, were just getting to know your tissue. Chuckles again.
 
And for the next week, Dick obsessively looks to his phone, willing the clinic not to call.
 
Poor Dick.

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I’m sure the Duchess of Cambridge has prepared herself for her birth.

I doubt she popped over to the hospital to stick her hand in a cup of ice while William told her to breathe funny and count to three, but I’m sure she’s got some resources. Yet, no matter what hypno-birthing-in-a-tub-he-ha-ha-breathing-scented-candle-meditative-state you’re planning on Your Grace, I have some terrible news: it ain’t gonna work. Your “birth plan” even imprinted with the royal seal, will be tossed out the window. 

Why? 

1. Birth is pain, to paraphrase Westley, and anyone who says differently is selling you something.

It is going to hurt. Badly. And that type of pain puts your brain in a space you cannot predict. I think people in Micronesia heard my screams as I dilated six centimeters in twenty minutes with my second child. This is physical pain that you truly could not imagine. People say “I thought I was going to die” in a tongue-in-cheek way these days, like "OMG, I stubbed my toe on the ottoman and I thought I was going to die." But I’m telling you, I. thought. I. was. going. to. die. Or kill the entire nursing staff because: a) they kept talking so loud b) they kept being so blasted nonchalant, as if women have babies every day or something. 


2. Even if you get an epidural, as I did with my first, there will be pain involved. 

They’re called needles. And they’re as long as Estimate, the Queen’s winning horse’s, legs. And then you get all loopy and can’t go to the bathroom…it’s very undignified.

3. Because of the above, your reaction to birth will not be as planned. 

The first go ‘round, I realized in the midst of our birth class that my husband counting in my face and telling me how great I was doing annoyed the be-jesus out of me. Yet, when he did or said something funny, it was distracting. Great! So off to the hospital we went, suitcase full of Eddie Izzard, The Daily Show, Hot Fuzz, and, just in case, the entire Harry Potter DVD collection. But I did not watch a single thing the entire time. Little did I know that would be the last time in five years I would ever be able to watch anything start to finish without interruption. The point being, I thought I would want one thing, and in the end, I just wanted it dark and quiet and peaceful. And I wanted that baby out. 

4. You will agree to interventions you don’t want because what you really want is a healthy baby. 

I didn’t want pitocin – the drug that helps to induce contractions – as I had heard it statistically leads to more C-sections. Someone on the internetwebs said that. But my first child was taking her sweet time. My water broke and apparently there’s a time limit to how long a kiddo should be hanging around womb side after the pool’s drained. So we got the dreaded p-word in my system and things started to move. But not fast enough. My baby’s heart rate was faltering – decelerating. I didn’t want to use any means other than my killer kegel muscles to get her out, but without a suction, I would not have a scrumptious near five year old bounding about my house.

5. Your discarded birth plan means bupkis.

Do not, for one instant, berate yourself for not having the birth you dreamed of - or others dreamed of for you. Whether it was covered in rainbows and unicorns and lavender and ended in ecstasy, or it was forty hours of pushing followed by a c-section, what you will have (hopefully – we’re praying for you!) is a happy healthy baby and a happy healthy mommy. Being one of the most famous women in the world is hard enough without adding weight to the schmucks who will try and critique how your baby came in to the world. So hold your head high. You've just birthed an heir and in an instant, become a mom.


*note: this is a re-post from pre-George's birth. 

Yes. I read the book. All three in fact. I had to for my job as producer and host of a podcast about ideas that matter in culture. I got a lot of grief producing that show. We were known for plumbing the artistic and theological depths and how dare we give air time to the likes of "that" book? 

Of course, we did do a show on The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo with nary a peep of protest. A book which depicts brutal rape, gruesome detailed descriptions of sexualized murder, a nearing Boomer sleeping with every woman in his path, including the nubile, barely twenty-something Girl, and sprinkled liberally with multiple male fantasy lesbian sex scenes. 

Where was all the protest on that one? It was made in to films on each side of the Atlantic, with barely a whisper of offense. Indeed, author Stieg Larson was held up like Eddie Vedder above a mosh pit as a feminist poster boy. His heroine is bold, stands up to men, makes her own rules. And yet, Lisbeth Salandar is a shell of a human being, so hollowed out by horror that her only motivation for even breathing is violence and vengeance. The perfect picture of the modern women. How dare we call his book's sexual content in to question? It's art. He's a man, so he should know.

Which brings me to my frustration with all this 50 Shades of Grey hate: since it is a book about a woman enjoying lots and lots of sex, written by a woman, it is automatically wrong, wrong, wrong. Because woman are either virgins or whores and there is no in between. 

Even feminists are pouring on the hate. And I get it, we've been fighting against the misconception that domination by males is What Women Want. We don't want the Second Wave sexual revolution to be based on women "submitting." We want to be unshackled in our sexual freedom, not blindfolded and trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey for a man drooling like Wile-E Coyote.

And yet, if you read the books, the heroine's goal is to actually lift Mr. Grey out of his domineering ways and, of course, she eventually succeeds...along the way, she surprisingly enjoys an orgasmic spanking. Not my kinda hanky-panky, but, as my Nana used to say, there's no accounting for taste. Anastasia, while dabbling in Christian's fetish out of curiosity, is decidedly against the whole submission thing, and even takes to domineering Mr. Grey sexually. So what's all the shouting about?

I am not saying these Grey books are good, either artistically or as a guide for what a healthy relationship, sexual or otherwise, looks like. What I'm saying is, what scares me more than the thought that women and girls may want to emulate Anastasia is that, as a society, we continue to shame the weak, the less powerful. And women are still in that boat. We point to any women who got tingles in her pants upon reading The Elevator Scene as wanton sluts, to be shunned by misogynists and feminists alike. Did you know that women used to be put in asylums for enjoying sex? People thought the female orgasm was a disease and called it hysteria. Look at that whore. Who does she think she is? She's out of her mind.

Want to talk about unhealthy attitudes about women? What would our world be like if the unfettered hate that has been unfurled upon 50 Shades was turned upon the porn industry? Or sex trafficking? While the Superbowl was sad for the Seahawks, it was horrific for the women forced to service the throngs of disappointed or jubilant men...

But don't get me started.

We can criticize the sexual ethics of 50 Shades all we want, but in the same breath we must recognize the deafening silence when the same stale, pathetic, swoony women are continuously and unabashedly displayed in fiction, television, and film created by men. And for all those women who like their sex and their reading hot around the edges? I hope you painted your bedroom red and posted it on Pintrest. No shame, baby. Oh...my. 

These are the ten best books *I read* in 2014. Not all of them were released in 2014. But really, who restricts their reading only to the year books are released? Missed The Poisonwood Bible back in '98? Too bad! You better finish up The Emperor Waltz, misogynistic though it is, then move on to something you actually want to read. 

Pft. 

So, here's *my* list of the ten books I enjoyed best this year. See how that's not as snazzy a blog title?

In no particular order:

We had to tell our daughter 
The Big Secret.

A swift catalogue of Rockwell-esque memories flashed through my head: my mom calling “Santa” when I glared at my peas; the Space Needle’s red blinking light becoming Rudolf’s nose; nestling all snug in my bed listening intently for reindeer hooves; the empty cookie plate and drained glass of nog; willfully disregarding Santa’s handwriting being exactly. the. same. as my mom’s. The list, like Santa’s, goes on and on. There’d be no Santa bribing, no hiding elves on shelves, no racing to bed on Christmas Eve, no Miracle’s on 34th Street, or 26th Street, as the case may be. No…magic. 

But what price my little girl's sanity?

So we pulled the plug. Opened the can of cranberries. Let the cat out of the stocking. It involved this hopelessly boring video, that really did not need to be made. Who doesn't know how to dress like Santa? What rock do you live under in which you don't know what Santa looks like, but have access to YouTube? 

Anyhow, now she’s in on the big hush-hush – and has been admonished to Tell No One.

But it still makes me sad. Part of childhood is wonder and discovery and adventure and believing in things we grown ups are too boring to ponder let alone be charmed by. Have we taken that from her – taken away part of her imagination? Her fantasy?

Last year, she got one look at the Santa whose knee she was supposed to sit primly upon, and promptly applied herself to my leg like Kate Winslet on a floating door. She wailed. We cajoled. We now have a picture of her clinging to my neck while I sit on said Santa’s knee in jeans and unwashed hair with my husband looking drunk behind us all. Santa looks like he’s hoping for time and a half.

We chalked it up to being That Year with That Photo which we will someday show her fiancé as she glares at us with betrayal and vengeance. Yet here she was, a year later, my sweet little girl, shaking, tears pooling in her big Susie Loo Who eyes. Not in front of Santa himself, but by just looking at last year’s picture of her  - er, us - with Santa. And while we have a “therapy jar” along with her college savings fund, I did not want her to have post-traumatic-stress about Christmas. Because, much to the chagrin of the Grinch, one cannot hide from Christmas.

Cut to last week, driving to preschool. Ex nihilo, she says, “Mommy, don’t tell me mermaids don’t exist because I want to believe in them.”

That’s all I needed to hear. Too bad mermaids don’t have a holiday. But maybe we could make one… I see lots of water on the hardwood floor and more money in the therapy jar.

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Forget the IPhone 6. The newest from Apple? Egg freezing! And Facebook’s doing it too, in what is being hailed as the “employee perks arms race” of the tech world. 

But you know what it sounds like to me? 
A hollow, patronizing gesture akin to Kobe Bryant giving his wife a $4 million ring during his “alleged” rape trial. While diamonds are supposedly a girl’s best friend, his (now ex) wife would probably have preferred the gift of keeping his privates in his pants. 

Yes, I am comparing egg freezing to “oops I got caught” adultery gifts. But please, people, before you write me angry emails about the struggles of infertility, I’m only suggesting the comparison in the context of a company being clueless about what might actually be helpful to their employees. Not to mention less creepy.

Freezing eggs costs a lot of money, about $10,000 for the procedure and around $100 a month to maintain the egg-cubes. 

Quite the magnanimous gift. 

And yet, what message is this sending? How about this one: “We’re gonna need you to put anything in your life outside your job on hold indefinitely. You can have babies when you’re retired how ‘bout? Aren’t we such an awesome, forward thinking place!” Pat back. Trot out female CEO. More back-patting.

Forget for a moment that simply freezing one’s eggs does not guarantee a baby in the future. Our wombs age, our partner’s sperm age, thin, swim slower; we are at higher risk for complications like preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, low birth weight, chromosomal abnormalities and still birth, all of which make simply “putting off” having a baby more complicated, and life threatening, than passing up a promotion.

So how about Apple and Facebook take the apparent surplus of funds they have to shower upon their most humble and grateful employees, and do something that will actually keep the majority of those women who wish to become mothers employed? For instance, steal an idea from Starbucks and put a top-notch day-care facility in their building. Or take a page from Google and give five months paid maternity leave.

And check out France, who has some of the highest rates of fertility and, wait for it, employment rates for women, in the world. France mandates women receive full pay for sixteen weeks (even longer for a second or third child), they have free daycare/preschools and provide generous stipends for in home child care. 

It’s not just about making it easier for women to continue to work and raise a family. Studies have shown that, in countries with longer parental leave, life expectancy was also longer. Not to mention the anecdotal decreases of stress and increase of productivity if one knows their children are well cared for and their job secure, even if the babysitter calls in sick, a kid breaks an arm, or it’s an early release day…again.

These options would be significantly cheaper for Apple and Facebook than paying for their female employees to freeze their eggs. On the other hand, I would wager Apple and Facebook are counting on very few of their paltry number of female employees to take them up on this eggsicle idea. Hence, making a real effort to attract and keep women (and some men, mind) is not deemed worth their effort or their money. They’d rather look magnanimous and “cutting edge” in the press, than take the real barriers for women in the workplace seriously. 

But here’s the hitch. When Facebook and Apple employ people in places like France, they are required to follow the laws of that land. In other words, French Apple employees receive the French mandated benefits. Certainly the government pays the childcare subsidies, but Apple must pay its employees – up to thirty-four weeks - for maternity leave. 

They do it there, why not here? Because they don't have to.

They can just following the abysmal family leave laws of the U. S. government, which allow for no paid leave and twelve weeks unpaid, but only for women who have worked at a company of more than fifty employees for a year, equating to only one-fifth of new mothers qualifying for leave. Our country, home of the free and the brave, is one of only three countries in the world to leave new moms in the lurch. In case you are wondering, those two other countries are Oman, which is run by a Sultan and follows strictly to sharia law, and Papua New Guinea, where a large portion of the population is illiterate and on one of its islands, 41% of men report raping a women. How’s that for company? 

Look, I get that corporations are not social service organizations and are under no obligation to provide any benefits outside of what is legislated by our government. But when our richest, hippest companies can’t even set an example, as so many claim the "free market" should do, then what does that say about us as a people, as a nation? Apparently this: Kobe Bryant for president, 2016.

When someone famous dies, it somehow seems everyone wants in on the action. As if to say, "look at how sad I am about his death," contorting for one last time that celebrity's personal life into something that is our business, our personal right to own and frame.
And thus I hesitate to write this post, as Robin William's death is not about me. And yet, his death has brought to light a much needed deeper discussion on depression. Which is  about me. In the sense that I have depression.

Technically it's postpartum depression, but certainly there's some sort of statute of limitations on tacking on the postpartum bit. I mean, three years? C'mon. But somehow, saying "postpartum depression" get's me out of the "officially bonkers" category, like, "oh, it'll pass, it's just postpartum," the phrase silently mocking me like my pair of size 8 jeans. The only pair, mind you, that my toosh looks any good in. "Oh, that's just my postpartum flab, it'll pass. Speaking of passing, please pass the twice-baked almond croissants." 

And so, as with my baby gut, my depression lingers. But my need to caveat it with adjectives is where I think the problem lies. 

As a culture, we treat depression like it's just some type of bad mood or blip in hormones -something controllable with enough ice cream and rom-coms. People "struggle" with depression. Kind of like how people "struggle" with putting on Spanx. Or "struggle" with getting their kids to sleep.  

But I'm here to tell you, one doesn't "struggle" with depression any more than one "struggles" with appendicitis. Certainly, as with most health conditions, there are ways to help alleviate some of the symptoms through lifestyle choice, but the underlying disease is still there. 

And, since our culture has decided that depression is merely a struggle, implying one can just get over their sad-sack selves with a little gumption, chocolate and giggles, those of us with depression shy away from admitting our frailty. We try to laugh it off as a bad hair day or the all purpose standby, "stress."

But the countless deaths caused by depression, Mr. Williams' included, scream out for our culture to put away our judgement, our embarrassment, our polite dismissing. 

Yet all the same, I cringe under the idea that people would think there is something wrong with me - especially my mind. My self concept is of a competent, intelligent, hopefully witty person who may be a bit of a mess around the edges and stick her foot in her mouth so often her taste buds are rubberized, but ultimately has her s*%# together. 

And outing myself as depressed risks crushing my self concept. It risks admitting to friends and strangers alike that I have to be medicated to function. Well, to function without forcing my children to fend for themselves in the wilderness with nothing but gortex, some sticks and whining to save them, while I hide under my comforter binge watching British period dramas. 

To say this out loud feels like I'm admitting failure as a human being. I gather many with mental illness feel this way. If I had Irritable Bowel Syndrome, that too might be embarrassing and I'd hesitate to ever mention the word "bathroom" in mixed company, but it wouldn't mean I was somehow defective, somehow unable to cope with being alive. And I don't even have severe depression. I just get sad and angry for "no reason" - never suicidal. Escapist, yes, suicidal, no.

A lot of people are wondering how someone who was as funny as Williams could be clinically depressed. I'm guessing, among other things, his humor was a way he coped. I'm an extrovert, generally lively in social settings. I often speak, perform and do podcasts. I'm very good at my public personna. Rare is the person who sees the ugly underbelly. And yet, perhaps like Williams, all that extroversion, all that public performing, helps me. It takes me away from my spiraling inner world for awhile (well, that and Zoloft). It helps me focus on the joy of others. I need the life, the light, the laughter of others - I feed off it. And so to them, I look healthy. But that's because when we don't laugh, we die. And sometimes we die regardless.

So I think it's time we all decided there is no shame in depression. No failure in needing to take medicine or other measures to feel alive again. It's time for those of us with depression to let go of the self-imposed prison, and time for those who lack the "struggle" to lend an ear and a smile and still see a full person. Time to stop viewing those with mental illness as lessor, and perhaps start recognizing that those who struggle have a lot to teach the rest of us about living a life worth the effort. And I'll start with me. 

With many thanks again to the crazy talented Kelly Leslie, it's finally here: the blood red cover of God & King!

You say "gryphon I say "griffin," but however you spell it, I think he's pretty darn fantabulous all stepping on a sword and clutching a cross with his talons saying, "Yeah, I'm a mythical beast, but I can take you twenty times to next Tuesday, pipsqueak." 

But what will his name be? 
Well, you tell me, and win!

Make sure to sign up for my newsletter (if you're not already), then put your name suggestion below. The winning name gets a FREE electronic ARC of God & King!

And yeah, no, he won't be named Bob. You can come stronger than that people.