How Losing Somebody Drains All the Color Out of Your Life

I’ve been suicidal at various points in my life. People don’t know about it because I never woke up in the hospital, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t go through the planning.It’s problematic to think of contemplating self-harm as something you “get away with.” Those aren’t thoughts you should hide. Those are thoughts you should share. As for me, I didn’t talk about my depression because I couldn’t bear the thought of getting rejected during a moment of intense vulnerability. That, somehow, seemed worse than death.The simple fact is the United States is not a country that helps people who are in need. It just doesn’t. Any claim to the contrary is a cruel and malicious lie. This is a nation that allows people to sink into the depths, and it tends to elevate the monsters who cheer and cackle as you go down.I’ve wrestled with depression enough to know the way back does not follow a linear path. I’ve escaped that dark and tangled woods several times, and even now I’m incapable of drawing you a map. Even now it scares me, and I have to remind myself there is a way out even if I can’t remember how to find it.When I first picked up Blue Hours by Alison Acheson, it was with reluctance bordering on terror. It’s a book that deals with depression, and I feared that it might trigger another episode. Instead, I found it’s a book that explores the topic with such honesty and compassion that it leaves you better equipped to face that challenge in the future.How the loss of a loved one alters your lifeWhen somebody close to you dies, it’s like losing the colors of the world. This concept is suggested by the title Blue Hours. In the book, Keith has lost his wife and Charlie has lost his mother. For both of them, the world has lost all hue.We meet these characters just as they have begun to wrestle with the hardships of their new reality. Just as a color influences the other shades on a canvas, the loss of a person affects many relationships. When you lose somebody, you awaken to the truth that many of your relationships were not as you perceived. You begin an odyssey of self-exploration, and you end up battling monsters you might have preferred to avoid.Processing your sadnessAs I’ve gotten older, I’ve discovered that there’s tremendous value in processing your trauma. Too often, we feel pressure to get back to normal before we’re ready. We live within the expectations of our professional and social circles. Our peers are used to seeing us a certain way, and they’re resistant to change.“Get over it,” they say, because they don’t have any other words.When you succumb to tears, it makes the people around you uncomfortable, so we resist those feelings in more ways than one. But if you allow the tears to run their course, you come out better on the other side. Something gets fixed. I don’t understand why or how, but it happens.The questKeith and Charlie go on a journey together. It’s useful to have movement when you’re struggling with depression. The external quest parallels the internal one. You move from your moment of shock and confusion to a new place where you can start finding joy again.There were many moments in Blue Hours which I thought were truly remarkable. Alison Acheson has had to process grief in her personal life, and she’s emerged with a stunning amount of kindness and wisdom.A few chapters in, there’s a moment where Charlie sees a coyote, and he gets the impression that the coyote is his mother. That’s the moment that I really began to get in sync with the book even though reincarnation isn’t a theme the novel explores. Instead, it’s the idea of renewal. I was drawn to the notion of finding not a replacement for your loved one, but a new object that could help to replicate the color that has drained from your life.The hardest part of loss is the way it transforms your whole world into something foreign. Your home no longer feels the same because it’s no longer shared with the person you cared about. You end up trapped in an uncomfortable state of mind where you seek comfort in the familiar only to find the familiar has become irrevocably changed.Disoriented without a foundationWhen you’ve been deprived of your footing, you’re left floating in space. That is perhaps the best way to describe Blue Hours. It’s the quest for a new landing place.You end up looking to the past for guidance, but even the past is different now. The truth is that we never really know anybody. We allow a certain mystery even for the people who are closest to you.We don’t follow our loved ones around. We don’t spy on them. We don’t read every correspondence. Instead, we pretend to have the relationships we want to have. Some people are closer in reality than others, but it never aligns 100%.When somebody passes it becomes an opportunity to accept the reality of who they were and not the fantasy you imposed on them. Coming to terms with that truth can be a way of recuperating your color. Embracing that process restores your autonomy and allows you to branch out, explore new places, and relearn how to survive.You discover you no longer have the obligation to maintain your familiar fantasy. That world is no longer the same. You’re in a new chapter now.The tattered fragments of the pastPeople end up miserable when they try to maintain the remnants of a life that no longer serves them. There’s no chance of peace. They get caught making greater and greater sacrifices to live in a world that has lost even the hope of color.The familiar no longer serves them because the familiar has gone. Movement is necessary. You have to go to a place where, even though the shapes might be different, the color has been restored.This is a daunting task and avoidance is a tempting response. But it’s only through coming to terms with the essence of the people you love that you’re able to recuperate an authentic part of them.You have no other choiceI found Blue Hours to be a remarkable book. It doesn’t shy away from perhaps the most difficult and painful mystery of what it means to be human. Depression and death are primary themes, and Blue Hours succeeds in creating an authentic outline which might provide some guidance in managing these challenges.This isn’t a book that takes shortcuts. It doesn’t offer false consolation. Instead, it meets the truth head-on.In this challenging life, there are moments when you are going to become stuck. You might stay in a place of discomfort for a long time. But if you allow the process to unfurl before you, if you resist the impulse to become an obstacle to your own self-healing, you can recuperate your colors and experience joy again.The return of colorBlue hours are the moments when all hope seems lost. Then the coyote appears and red is restored to the palette. Even when the coyote runs away, the afterimage remains. That’s progress.Sometimes that flashing illusion is all you need to find the motivation to keep going. With time, the greens and the yellows return, and little by little the world again looks as you remember. Even though the shapes are in new places, the colors are back.Perhaps the secret to restoring your ability to live is as simple as urging each other to hold on. Hold on, just a little longer. Your colors are still out there. They just no longer exist in the places you’ve become conditioned to look.Here’s the publisher’s page for this book.You all make this newsletter happen! Thanks for your sponsorship! 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