Amen. Alleluia.

My apartment smells like homemade funfetti cake. It's clean, at least, as long as you don't open the closets. Miles Davis is playing ballads on the radio. 

"Oh my God!" One of two favorite former roommates walks into my apartment. She and her husband are not normally this effusive but within fifteen seconds of them entering I'm introduced to their daughter, hugged, and told "Your apartment is so cute! It smells so good in here! You look incredible." I warm up, almost instantly. I've been simultaneously excited for and dreading the evening all week. My phone rings and I run downstairs to bring up another guest. 

It's November 7th, the date of my annual birthday party for Lise Meitner and Marie Curie. 

I have, as I've noted in the past, keep some strange holidays. I can generally be relied on to read the Declaration of Independence on the 4th of July and recount the Haymarket Square riots on Labor Day, sure. I think anyone who has known me for awhile knows that I have a minor Lincoln obsession and will celebrate his birthday with a Mary Todd Lincoln almond cake every February (this is the holiday I celebrate instead of Valentine's Day). These are the somewhat normal holidays I repurpose every year. 

The odder ones are, in no particular order: the day Teddy Roosevelt was shot in Milwaukee and continued reading the speech he had started before accepting treatment, the announcement of the discovery of the Higgs Boson, the publication dates of The Great Gatsby and The Lord of the Rings and the birthdays of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Meitner, Curie, and Jane Austen.

Of those holidays, November 7th is the most important. It's my secular Christmas. It's a mash-up of all the things I love. History, science, feminism, excellent writing, discovery. Every year I celebrate with a birthday cake and when possible, friends over for tea and birthday cake and conversation about women in science or books or writing or that article in The New York Review of Books that's been irritating me all week. 

It's one of my favorite parties. 

This year I almost canceled. 

***

I am, as I wrote previously, having some issues with OCD and anxiety again. And while they're no where near as bad as what I experienced while living in the North Country, they're bad enough that other people have noticed and insisted that I return to treatment. The amount of frustration, anger, and disappointment I feel over being unwell is indescribable. I suppose I always knew that I would live with anxiety and OCD for my entire life, but there was a not insignificant part of me who hoped that it was really a function of loneliness and the place where I was living, that once I moved back to a city I love and was surrounded by people who love me, all of my mental health issues would vanish. 

I have a slight giant tendency to be extremely hard on myself. I'm also stubborn, proud, and am used to fixing things on my own. It is, of course, what kept me from getting treated for so long (which, of course, ultimately meant that I had a bigger hole to clamber out of when I finally did). Becoming a sane, stable individual is, for some of us at least, an entire life's work. 

There's still a version of myself who is constantly telling me "It doesn't matter. If you can't make yourself happy here, you won't be happy anywhere. You're a drag on all your friends, no one is ever going to love you, and you might as well accept that you'll die old, alone, and crazy." 

That Kelly is such a bitch. She's also unbelievably loud. And convincing. 

***

The Benedictines really did a number on me. 

After seven years of schooling with them it was, I suppose, somewhat inevitable. But they didn't make me want to become a nun, and they certainly didn't keep me a Catholic. What they did pound into my head were those damn Benedictine Values: Community Living, Taking Counsel, Listening, the Dignity of Work, Hospitality, Stewardship and the rest of them that have essentially told me for my entire adult life "A job that pays you piles of money, a big house, all of the trappings of the successful adult world are not the way to live." 

The Benedictines would ask "Are you doing God's work in the world?" and despite the fact that I'm an atheist, it's still a question I ask myself, on average, three hundred times a week, even if it comes out a little differently:

"Are you living a life of deep meaning? Is this the life you want to live, because your existence is so improbable and you only get one shot at this. It better be."

That's the damndest part of dealing with mental health issues. I feel like those Benedictine nuns are looking over my shoulder tsking at how because of anxiety and depression I'm not able to be my best self. I can't be the Kelly I'm supposed to be because when I come home these days I go right to bed or sit down in front of the television so I don't have to think. They serve as a constant reminder that this is not the way you're supposed to live, Kelly. 

***

Six people drop in for the Curie/Meitner party, which is the perfect amount for my tiny apartment. We end up talking as much about books and family law as we do about women and science, but we drink six pots of mint tea and eat all of the funfetti cake (homemade funfetti, who knew?). It's a fun, quiet party, full of the kind of conversation I love most. 

Despite the week I've had and the depression I'm struggling with, despite the fact that we used literally every single plate I own, despite the headache throbbing behind my eyeballs, I'm really happy. Happier than I expected to be. 

Those nuns, I realize as I stack plates in the sink and check the oven for what feels like the seven-hundredth time, aren't tsking over my shoulder. If anything, they'd be offering me a cup of tea and asking in that wonderful women-religious way how are you doing? 

I finally give in and take something for my head, switch out the lamps, and crawl into bed.  The bitchy, anxious side of my brain immediately starts up These aren't tension headaches, it's a tumor and you're going to die in your sleep. Your cake was terrible, people just ate it because they feel sorry for you. You are never, ever going to be well. 

I think of the people who have just spent the evening with me, the conversation we had, the list of books I have to read, the suggestions for therapists I've procured. I consider the holidays I celebrate, and the fact that despite being a bit odd they hold deep meaning for me and that the friends I've made are willing to celebrate them with me. I remember my favorite bit of Marie Curie's writing:

Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all, confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this something must be attained. 

Anxiety, depression, and OCD are, truthfully, going to make my life extremely difficult for at least the foreseeable future. I will struggle with them to varying degrees for my entire life. While that's a pretty grim reality, it doesn't mean that I'm not going to be able to live the life I want to live, the life the Benedictines taught me was important. And as the medication I've taken for my head gently tugs me towards sleep, I murmur two words that haven't slipped out of my mouth in a long time.

Amen. Alleluia.