“I am reliable for myself”: find support in yourself

Lyrics first. Epigraph from Galchinsky: “I love your heart to be. Close. Near. And outside the windows — snow. And the crows under the snowfall … «

At the age of 19 I had a great love. From time to time I called and asked to come urgently to save me.

“I’ll come tomorrow,” said great love.

— Tomorrow? I feel bad today.

— Today itself. You can be saved every day.

And so it was — I easily plunged into despair and quickly, like a stone down, reached the bottom. I had this device. I had to learn to save myself. Get acquainted with the wording “I am reliable for myself” and enter, drive it into the subconscious. (More about methods later.) It helped. I imagine it in the form of a strong, flexible rod made of a defense alloy — letters in ligature along the spine: «I am reliable for myself.»

But sometimes, less and less, it rolls. The rod weakens, the ligature unravels, the forces flow out and seem to gather under the bed, like mercury. And hello, “I’m lying in such a huge puddle” … And I can’t get up. Once, in this state, I bought a new padding pillow, it seemed to me that the old feather pillow was stuffed with my black thoughts. And it won’t dry out.

In another crisis, when “everything was bad,” the psychologist gave me a task. She didn’t ask, didn’t advise, but she ordered me to do this: write down on A4 sheet what I like in life. What pleases. Not big, big, like world peace and universal harmony, but what is nearby is always at hand, trifles, all sorts of nonsense.

It was necessary to take your favorite pen, which is pleasant to touch in your hand and so that it leaves a soft, continuous, velvet mark on paper, step back the margins from above, to the right and left, and remember at least something. It was difficult for me to breathe, I did not want to eat or drink, nothing at all. But since I turned to a psychologist for help and was in his office, I had to think and write: I like…

…your breakfast

…my Armenian brass Turk (“she is 20 years old,” I added for some reason),

…the smell of ground coffee

…when a sparrow flies to the window to peck crumbs (or a titmouse),

…look at a crow that sits under the snow on a tree: the flakes fall, but it does not even turn its head (and does not fly away).

The reception ended, I took the sheet home, and in the evening I took it out of my bag, crumpled, and added that I still love …

…kiss children on the forehead, under the bangs (mother says it “smells like feathers” there),

…lie on your right side with a book

…write to friends: “Well, how is it?”,

…your perfume Chanel Chance (and Chanel Allure, in the evening),

…their silver rings, especially one with coral,

… when Gus calls for work, he says emphatically, “Mom…” and pauses,

… when Asya asks: “You know what?” — and on the go comes up with what to say.

Before going to bed, when the lights are already off and usually I think about all sorts of household garbage (for which you don’t pay: light, water, meters, and that you need to buy buckwheat) or about the eternal (suddenly they will bury me alive, and I will wake up), I lay and sorted it out with a stream of thoughts about various cute things that fell upon me. I remember getting up, walking barefoot to the table, turning on the table lamp and writing down: I like…

…sit in the Greek hall of the Pushkin Museum — everything is proportional, white, harmonious there and the ceiling is glass,

…profiteroles with lemon cream on Gogolevsky,

…when they kiss between the shoulder blades (“and, leaving, with sweet lips, kiss two moles between the shoulder blades”),

…sit on the floor, shake out black-and-white paper photographs from Unibrom envelopes, where my parents are younger than me now, and they have their own life there even before me, and go through and look at the photos for a long time,

…when nothing needs to be said and everything is clear,

…the color of the marble at the Sretensky Bulvar station (it is not brown or pink, it is delicate and can be seen directly from the carriage).

In the morning it was easier for me to breathe. I worked, wrote, and under the keyboard I had two new list sheets. I love…

…dive and listen to what’s under the water,

…when fog or a cloud creeps on the rocks (I used to see this from the window),

…peonies (they smell like holidays) and chrysanthemums (they remind you that there can be happiness in autumn).

Four days later, I wanted to go somewhere, which had not happened for a long time, I wanted to go out among people, push around, listen to the noise of the crowd. On the way to the metro, I looked around and even at the sky, and sniffed the smell of shawarma and tandoor in an Uzbek bakery.

The list occupied several sheets, replenished no longer so actively, but the fact that I had it lying under a napkin was strangely reassuring. Like a little secret with multi-colored pieces of glass: you can always run, catch your breath, dig and admire.

Of course, later it turned out that it was all technique, technique, right-brain psychology. That by pushing the brain to seek pleasure in our lives, we turn it into an antenna that captures the good. The brain begins to scan reality and find reasons for joy in it. And when their number grows, it exceeds some, everyone has a different limit, something like fireworks happens in the head, the mood improves, and a reason is no longer needed for happiness. You just sit, and you rather feel good. Sometimes very straight forward.

Once upon a time I wrote about a group of women who were preparing for publication a named «Book of Memory». This is a list of all those who went to the front in the Great Patriotic War. Last name, first name, patronymic, year of birth, where he was called from … And then, who has what.

It turned out that for a long time at such a job no one can stand it, there are many heart attacks and even deaths. “And what did you think, to sit and write all day long: he died, he died, he died, he disappeared without a trace … What kind of heart can stand here?” said the leader of the group bitterly.

In the case of a list where each item opens with the word “love”, the situation is reversed. All these points, sub-points, trifles and nonsense, titmouse and watch, smells and sounds — bind to life, remind that it deserves to be lived …

I’m not a psychologist, I’m just describing my experience. There is nothing unique about it. As in the thought that it is good when you love a lot of things in life. You just need to remind yourself of this. And you can write such a list all your life, at least mentally.