I’ve spent part of the past 10 years colored some shade of crazy.  When my first baby was home, safe in my arms after a 13 month adoption process I cried all the time.  A sad cry.  A deep deep cry, new to me in 32 years of crying. I asked my doc about it, she asked me a few questions and said that I was “clinically depressed”.   Labeling it like that was weirder than the deep deep cry.  I took some meds, visited a therapist who cured me, and in a year I was seemingly back to normal.

Always on guard against the crazies making a return, I remained sensitive to times of year, lack of sunlight, and Molly Ringwald suicide movies.   I traced my first bout with crazy when I was a junior in high school and Molly starred in a TV movie about a high school suicide pact.  My teen idol and fashion icon was on TV.  The topic of the movie, I cared less about.  Televised during February sweeps, I watched and was moved.  I wore black for the rest of the month, which wasn’t difficult for me to do since I had a penchant for wearing black anyway.  I was sullen. I think I was depressed.

When my post adoption depression dissipated and I started to wonder about my lifelong melancholy tendencies, I pinpointed this TV show as my first blue period.  The time of year wasn’t lost on me. January and February seemed to be low months for me consistently throughout my memory.  Seasonal Affective Disorder? Perhaps.  The irony of making the Pacific Northwest home and its popularity for SAD cases has not gone unnoticed.

My second kid also made me crazy.  When the process for baby #2 was underway, I was very aware of my feelings and kept them in check. The waiting for my second boy was easy compared to the first. No worries. It was good.

I didn’t realize that I was coo-coo brains again until I wasn’t.  When small boy turned 5, I felt a sense of freedom and relief that was so obvious, I thought I could see it.  As a toddler, it took a lot of practice for him to learn to do important things, like don’t run out into the middle of the street.   Things the first boy learned at 3, took his brother two extra years.  He’s not slow, he’s just Asher.  The anxiety and worry that accompanied those moments with him initiated a revolt of brown pigment in my hair.  But the moment he blew out the candles on his bald eagle birthday cake, I got my brain back.

I wasn’t depressed during that time, but I was constantly anxious and an annoying control freak.  Another flavor of Coo-Coo brains.  When I trusted that Asher would stop at the corner of the block, wait for me, then look both ways before crossing the road, my world got brighter.  The birds out my window fluttered about with tiny ribbon sashes and flower petal confetti.  Better yet, I felt 5 years younger.  Despite the gray hair, I was a born again 36 year old. Hallelujah! Pass the collection plate.

I still have my days of crazy. The week between Christmas and New Years tends to be a downer.  January and February still make me nervous. But my boys aren’t driving yet, so I’m hopeful I have a few sweet years before I’m Coo-Coo brains once again.