It’s a bit of a long story, but the isolation was getting to be too much for me.

I hope to continue to make lots of “car free” trips and to pull my fair share of carpooling, but the reality is, we’re just not ready to live without a car, particularly with a young child. We made it work — for over 3 months — and it did work. But we also gave up a lot of freedom and community to make that happen.

So, maybe I’ll post from time to time, to talk about our car-filled ventures. Or maybe not. We’ll have to see.

P.S. I am doing my first carpool tomorrow morning, taking Mandy and Seamus to La Leche League. They have driven us for several months, so I owe her quite a few favors.

Roundtrip: 1.6 miles

Why is it so hard to get myself out of the house on a chilly day?

Now we just need a couple laying hens, and we will be ready to enjoy some “city fresh” eggs!

New prices: $350 and $620, respectively.

Scouring the used market and trying to determine if we can pick up a secondhand bike that’s in decent shape ($100 - $150) and still make our mortgage payment. Money is tight, but the weather is so nice that it’s awfully tempting to throw caution to the wind and hope for the best.

This morning, we played with a little friend, had some lunch, and then headed out to walk to a nearby park. It was 1.5 miles away, but the weather was lovely, and Mandy had encouraged me to get out of the house and enjoy it. So we did.

I forget sometimes how a good walk to the park and some playground time really makes the day fly by!

And it’s much easier to keep my house clean when we’re not home.

This week’s agenda: 
Tuesday - carpool to La Leche League meeting
Wednesday - no plans; no nearby friends are going to La Leche  League Cary meeting, it seems
Thursday - playgroup at our house!
Friday - 4pm doctor’s appointment

In other news, my friend Tara may be bringing her little one over three or four days a week to play for a few hours each morning, so that she has someone to keep an eye on him while she does some web work here and there. Hoping this arrangement will work out well for both of us!

See, the thing is, you just forget how frequently that you can drive over to a friend’s house or out to a playgroup when you own a car. When you’re feeling low, it’s easy to get out for the afternoon.

When you’re car-free, unless you have a bike, you’re a bit more limited. I can take the bus to get to several places, but the reality of riding the bus in Raleigh with a toddler is less appealing than staying home. If Mark is home, I am glad to get out, because then we can bounce back and forth between who is keeping an eye on our little one. But alone, with a very spirited little toddler, it’s more of a challenge.

So, I’ve been mostly staying in my pajamas, ignoring my toddler, surfing the ‘Net, reading books, eating frozen foods, and watching my house turn into a disgusting mess. And little by little, the darkness creeps in. I find myself struggling to get out of bed. The littlest things seem to require monumental effort. I can’t muster up any inertia to get anything done. My toddler begins to cry more, because he knows when I am feeling low. I can’t talk myself into going for a simple walk outside. And the cycle perpetuates.

My friend Mandy has been a great help; today, she offered to come over and bring her toddler to play with mine, and then help me get the house clean. And little by little, I’ve been opening up more about what it really feels like to struggle with postpartum depression. The way that after my son was born, I felt like the mama cat who is disinterested in her little kittens and just wants to sleep, for the love of God, please!

But the thing is, in our society, we don’t talk about things like depression. Especially maternal depression. It’s hard not to feel like there is something flawed within you, some great moral failing, when you have days where you struggle just to take a shower. To make something for breakfast. To play with your child.

And that’s where the isolation comes in. Before, when those feelings began to bubble up to the surface again, I would go out. I’d spend time with friends. I’d go to the mall and let Malachy play in the playground and just chill.

Now, going out requires more planning than I’m often able to muster when the depression has crept in too quickly.  Although I am currently taking a low dose of Zoloft, which helps immensely, if I’m not careful, I can spiral downward again. Especially if I miss a dose or two. Or don’t get my prescription refilled before it runs out. Or get stuck at home for two weeks when we are all sick with a cold.

I was talking to a friend this morning, and she offered up an extra kid seat she has in her shed, for the back of a bike. I don’t have a bike yet, and we’d been planning to wait until spring to buy one. But I think I will get one ASAP, because we’d have a lot more freedom to visit friends (with far less dependency on the bus) if we had one. Or just ride downtown or other places to play.

And when Malachy recovers from his bout with RSV, I need to start planning a weekly playgroup at my house, to keep myself on a cleaning routine. I feel much better when the house is orderly, and when it’s messy for a few days, I spiral downward that much faster.

We went to a lovely Christmas Eve vigil mass, although we would have preferred Midnight Mass. But, having a toddler and lacking our own car, we made do with the 5:30 alternative. Which, after wrestling a toddler into fancy clothes, was actually quite enjoyable.

We came home and I realized that I’d overcooked the lamb (which was somehow still good) and then dumped the blueberry pie on the inside of the oven (not edible). But the roasted veggies, stuffing, and cranberry sauce all survived.

Christmas morning, we opened presents, then loaded up Malachy in his little red wagon for a walk to the park.

Last Sunday, the following appeared in our parish’s “social justice” section of the weekly bulletin.

Justice Bulletin Board
“The desert and the parched land will exult; the steppe will rejoice and bloom.” (Isaiah 35: 1)

Faithful Stewards of God’s Creation:
A Catholic Resource for Environmental Justice and Climate Change

“As people of Faith, we are convinced that “the earth is the Lord’s and all it holds…we believe our response to global climate change should be a sign of our respect for God’s creation. Today, there is a particular and pressing responsibility to examine and act on the growing challenge of global climate change and its implications for God’s creation and for the poor and vulnerable. At its core, global climate change is not about economic theory or political platforms, nor about partisan advantage or interest group pressures. It is about the future of God’s creation and the one human family. It is about protecting both ‘the human environment’ and the natural environment.” (Global Climate Change: A Plea for Dialogue, Prudence and the Common Good, US Catholic Bishops, 2001)

What can I do? (Suggestions from the US Catholic Bishops)

• Encourage lawmakers to improve and update public transportation.
• Join local efforts of groups working to explore ways your city can do business and reduce harmful emissions.
• Urge that any legislative action on climate change include provisions that: (1) ease the burden on poor people; (2) offer some relief for workers who may be displaced because of climate change policies; and (3) promote the development and use of alternate renewable and clean-energy resources.
• Write to your Senators and Representatives in Congress and let them know that you care about climate change and support action on a local and national level that includes the three key priorities above.

(link)

Although I usually love the practical suggestions in this section of the bulletin, last week’s left me feeling a bit… glum. It seemed as if every suggestion was aimed at getting other people to change, and nothing about finding small, slightly challenging ways to change our own lifestyles.

So, in the absence of such encouragement from last week’s bulletin, you’re stuck with me.

Make one small effort this week to do something that will leave a (just barely) lighter footprint on the earth. And then post here and share what you are doing.

“We must be the change we wish to see in the world.” - M. Gandhi

Instead, we ended up having Malachy’s picture taken… then bought frames at A.C. Moore… then hiked across the parking lot to get an umbrella stroller from Target… lunch at California Pizza Kitchen… dinner at Steak N Shake… a few other odds and ends…  and finally ended up back home at 7:00pm.

Several conclusions from the adventure:

1. Holiday traffic is the worst kind.
2. I’d much rather be on a bus than in a car, nine times out of ten.
3. You buy less when you have to lug it all home by bus.
4. Shopping is exhausting, whether it’s by car or by bus.
5. Some serious traffic reduction could happen if Raleigh would fund seasonal “shopping buses” that ran loops from Moore Square to the various malls and strip malls, on an hourly (or half-hourly) basis.
6. Umbrella strollers are well worth $11.
7. North Carolina spends a ridiculous sum of money keeping their roads perfectly paved.
8. Raleigh spends not nearly enough keeping their sidewalks in walkable condition, and even less on building new sidewalks.
9. The bus-riding rush hour crowd is much friendlier than the road-raging drivers around them.
10. Riding the bus is a great way to meet your neighbors and become more at ease conversing with people of other races, ethnicities, and socio-economic backgrounds.

In addition to not owning a car, we also don’t have a television. We sold it about three years ago and never looked back.  We have more free time and are able to limit our (and our son’s) exposure to advertising.

Side note: By “advertising,” I don’t just mean commercials. I mean the more insidious types, like ad-free children’s programming and network channels whose characters are then licensed for use on everything from breakfast cereal to stuffed toys.  I mean the sort of “advertising” to adults that sells a materialistic lifestyle… and you absorb those “needs” when you watch many typical sitcoms that feature Hollywood’s definition of a “middle class American family.”

In any case, this is the first year that we have moved through Advent with neither a television nor a car.

And it has been amazing. We haven’t been to a shopping mall (except last night, to meet a friend after work). We haven’t heard much fuss about the approaching holidays. We haven’t driven around and been reminded by frenzied shoppers and traffic jams.

In fact, I only realized yesterday that Christmas was 10 days away. We put up a tree just after Thanksgiving. We’ve played some holiday tunes. But somehow, the usual momentum just hasn’t carried us through the month of December, hurrying to shop, shop, shop.

So, for Malachy, I’ve wrapped up a Waldorf doll that I mail ordered a while back. I set aside a little barn that I found at a thrift shop months ago.

For Mark, I picked out a few stocking sweets and am working with a friend to finish up one thoughtful gift. (At least, I hope he’ll like it.)

I picked up a small gift for Malachy’s “godbrother,” and that’s pretty much it for this year. I can’t really think of anything that anyone else wants or needs.

A strange end for the year, indeed.