And happy one-year anniversary of my freedom from Cymbalta -- according to the essay below that just popped up on Facebook. I'm sometimes glad Facebook reminds me of these memories to show me what I've survived and how far I've come ... and how I couldn't have done it without my family, my friends and even my little joys like gorgeously thematic symphonies.
It is 9:30 pm on what would have been Czech composer Antonín Dvořák's 175th birthday, and as my dad and I drove around tonight on our Thursday evening errands we listened to Dvořák's Symphony No. 9 -- also called "From the New World" due to its early American musical themes and the fact that he wrote it in the United States -- almost in its entirety.
It's the last symphony he composed -- and inarguably his most famous -- and in my opinion its brilliance lies in its endless accessibility. Its dominant six-note theme, often sung to the words of the folk song "Goin' Home," is never far from the surface no matter how many variations or complex contrapuntal themes he weaves it through.
As a composer, he was rooted firmly among the late Romantics with their heroic storylines and their soaring emotions and their confident nods to the nascent but growing fascination with the shimmering textures of the Impressionists and the gorgeous discordances of what would soon be revered around the world as American jazz. And this symphony sits right at the confluence of all that history, all that emotion, all that foresight and all that promise. And all with a mere six-note theme.
I'm trying not to make everything I write an endless litany of poor-little-bipolar-boy horror stories about deep depressive dives or unfairly short manic episodes or the spirit-killing side effects of my constantly evolving med cocktails. Honest. But I took my final Cymbalta 72 hours ago and my withdrawal side effects -- which I've been hoping would have waned to nothing by now -- spiked to soul-crushing levels of rapid-fire misery this afternoon and they seem to have gotten even worse in the last few hours. I'm dizzy and floaty and tingly and chompy and bouncy and unsteady and sometimes even actually confused. And I don't even have enough understanding of what's happening to me to know when the waves will hit or how strong they'll be or even when it's safe to stand up and assume I'll remain vertical.
But tonight, driving around with my dad, listening to music that has soothed and exhilarated and inspired and sustained me for 40+ years, knowing enough about it that I could come home and organize my thoughts and write about it all for anyone who cares to read my parades of paragraph-long sentences ... it all gave me a calming sense of purpose. Of much-needed focus. Of obligation to myself and to my family and friends to keep going and to trust that I'll come out at the end whole and balanced and maybe profoundly exhausted but thoroughly tested and ultimately triumphant.
Just like those six little notes.
1 comment:
Stay strong. You can do it. You're amazing!
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