A Hard Road Back to Southie

My friend Anne and I had worked together for the better part of ten years. She was tall and thin with dark curly hair, wore delicate looking glasses and had a quick, sharp tongue. She came from Southie and wore her Irish roots with pride. In her early 20's, she still lived at home, dated occasionally, and was always up for a drink after work on a Friday night. She was a believer, a practicing and serious Catholic with a light side and an often razor edged sense of humor, capable, smart, professional and highly likable. She rarely missed a day of work and was always well dressed with straight seams and a stylish but quiet Lord and Taylor look. She took things in stride and adapted gracefully to new people, new technologies, new problems. She liked her life and had a bright future and was the last candidate we could imagine for a nervous breakdown.

She was gone for nearly three months, tucked away in a pricey hospital upstate and we heard not a word. Managers and supervisors weren't talking but rumors flew - a suicide attempt, depression, paranoia, schizophrenia, even a random shooting spree - impossible things that were suddenly being taken quite seriously. The truth was that one clear and cold New Year's Day, Anne had unexpectedly melted down and gone away - no triggering event, no trauma, no shock - she simply stopped being in the world and retreated to a place of madness, verging on the catatonic, and her family sent her away to a place of green fields and support groups, therapy and drugs and doctors specializing in mental illness. She was treated, catered to, medicated, and forced into a recovery she didn't want and when she was deemed cured, she was released and sent back, as if nothing at all had happened.

She came back to Southie, back to her family and back to work, picking up where she had left off almost as if it had been a long holiday weekend, but the old Anne was gone and the new one was nearly a stranger - thin to the point of emaciation, brittle and fragile looking, old. There was no spark, no smile, no humor, just a shell of the woman we had once known, a shadow of what she had once been. Treat her normally, the bosses instructed, She's fine. But she wasn't fine, she was turned inward and shaky, hesitant and unsure, self conscious and reclusive. She didn't join in conversations, didn't shop on her lunch hour. She was forgetful and blank, frequently stopping in mid task to find her place, avoiding eye contact and keeping to herself. There were no more cheerful good mornings or weary good nights, no under her breath jokes or mild curses. She was easily overwhelmed by a workload she had been able to manage blindfolded. Her shoes were scuffed and her purse rattled with pill bottles and she wept when she misplaced her glasses. Her once familiar world had become foreign and troubled territory and she navigated it in a fog, alone, confused and unsure of her next step.

Things became easier over time. Her memory improved and her anonymous fears were mostly overcome. She took notice of a stained blouse or a run in her stockings, she began to focus and walk a little straighter, paid more attention to her hair and makeup, tried to re-inject a smile into her telephone conversations, but she was never the same old Anne and we all missed her.

I haven't thought of her in years and have no idea what became of her although I hope for the best. She taught me a simple lesson - that whether in mind or body, we are all breakable creatures on an uncertain path and that if we lose our way, it's a hard road back to Southie.