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Reading Between the Lines
It seems I've always colored outside the lines. Maybe it had to do with the fact that in high school my outdated Bobby Brooks "straight skirts" clashed with my classmates' pleated
tartans, though I never let on that my attire was due more to economics than to personal taste.
My beginnings were traditional enough, although when my parents joined ranks, they struck out on their own, leaving the rest of their families behind in a rural Pennsylvania town. By the time I was a parent, I had become leery of "staying in the lines." When my eldest daughter was three, she brought home from pre-school
a worksheet. At the top of the page in her toddler's hand she had drawn the perfect replica of a Volkswagen Bug, complete
with windows and wheels. I was impressed, but her teacher, who marked a big red X through my daughter's improv art, obviously was not. Indignant, I pulled my budding da Vinci out of preschool and displayed her masterpiece on the refrigerator door, the most prestigious place
in the house.
By the time my second daughter came along and I could no longer sleep in until noon, I was finding it difficult to maintain a daily routine. A few years later, divorced, I coped by storing up enough energy to
function as a non-custodial parent one day a week and every other weekend, and patched together some semblance of convention by paying child
support. Lest I'd forget that a noncustodial mother is akin to sacrilege (as even strangers were apt to remind me) I wore
my shame like a well-tailored suit.
Only after I was issued a DUI by the local sheriffs department did I realize this "coloring outside the lines" thing was getting out of hand (pun intended). Therapy taught me to manage my energy like my finances (which were pretty tight). "Take care of yourself" translated into working for a large corporation
with great benefits, so when I could not get out of bed in the morning, I called in sick. Assertiveness training gave me permission to cancel on friends at the last minute when overcome
by sadness or fatigue.
It wasn't until I went back to school and became a therapist myself that I was able to diagnose my depression. A new breed of antidepressants, the butts of bad jokes in proper society, infused my world
with Technicolor. I no longer sported a cloud about my head like Pig Pen in Charlie Brown.
When my younger daughter suffered post-partum depression, my life replayed before my eyes. We got her treatment within the
first week of the baby's life and she is now enjoying motherhood to the fullest.
Yes, I am a grandmother, albeit one of distinctive style. When my four-year-old grandson or 20-month-old granddaughter get frustrated because they can't "stay in the lines," I whisper, "It's OK, it's OK." And I can tell by the way they relax the grip on their Crayola crayon they believe me.
Jacquelyn (Stokes) Cornish ’72
Indianapolis
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