Tranquilaria: Mental Health Mini-Essays
The High Cost of Wiping Out All the Dugout Smokers.
Back in the 1970’s and the 1980’s, which is where I come from, no one gave a shit about your mental health. They just didn’t. If you were alive back then, you never heard anything about depression or anxiety. Depression was a a weird word, like an uppity word for a spring pothole maybe. And anxiety simply meant you weren’t smoking enough cigarettes. Which, back then, was something that people might very well judge you on. Light smokers were seen as a bit twee, a bit fancy-pants. Non-smokers were considered out-of-their-minds uppity. They were frowned upon and feared. They went to outdoor Air Supply concerts and drank chilled white wine from aluminum tumblers.
Those were the days, too. I remember standing in the dugout one Saturday morning, the sun shining brighter like it did back in those days, and breathing my head coach’s freshly exhaled Newport smoke straight into my lungs. It was glorious, that lightly toasted monument to a moment, out of his existence and down into mine. I remember thinking how grown-up I felt right then/ how safe and fine I would be forever.
Of course, that didn’t happen. And nowadays if a Little League coach were to light up a cigarette in the dugout it would literally be astonishing. The Tik Tok video. The public reaction raining down on both sides. The exclusive interviews with the parents of the players and the coach himself (or even better: HERSELF!… or even better THEMSELF!)… especially if you could get them on together. The entire world would go fucking apeshit. Legions of the opinionated masses would be triggered by the primal scent of blood to weigh-in, unsolicited of course, on the health horror vs snowflake debate of the century. Except it would all come and go in a heavy swift flash flood of madness that would disappear even quicker than it showed up on our screens. Here today, gone later today. But the long-term damage would have been done by then anyway.
Everyone would be worse for wear too. Instead of feeling right or justified or validated or smug, everyone would be left, just like we are always left anymore, feeling like we just ate a melting fist of summer dog shit off the sidewalk outside our front door. We would feel disgusted and violated and confused. No matter which army we had instantly joined upon the battle breaking out, we would have dreadful waves of absolute insecurity pounding us/ ripping us/ bringing us to our gasping knees in the raw sewage surf of the fallout of yet another modern day.
And in the end, I can’t help but wonder what’s worse.
Those local coaches smoking in the dugout?
Or who we have become since then?
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Sertraline 100mg.
A few weeks ago I tried to step down a bit off my meds. I figured I’d see if cutting the dose in half over a little time might suit me. A little backstory for the freshmen first, okay? If you are a mental health familiar/ please stand by.