six feet from rock bottom

I have a pattern of trying new things when I feel worst about myself, on the grounds that failure probably won't make me feel worse. It was true when I started making stitches on fabric last year, and it was true this summer when a friend - a good friend, the kind you trust with the truth - told me I needed to figure out SOMETHING to do to keep me from spiraling any further than I'd already gone.

At the same time I was going through it, my friend Chris was going through it, too.

Chris and I have known each other since high school. The degree to which we've been in touch has varied over the years, but we usually talk most when he's in crisis.

Chris's brain tries, as the kids say, to "unalive" him every chance it gets. Mental illness and major brain injuries will do that to you - it'll knock your head sideways and set it off course for no reason in the middle of a random Tuesday, and before you know it, you're looking for reasons to stay alive, even if that's just to be able to watch the Eagles game.

Chris has had to work harder to stay alive than anyone I know, and I've known a few badass cancer patients.

The thing that makes Chris awesome - the reason he's the strongest person I know - is that he will try anything. ANYTHING. To stay alive. He is that committed. When I'm depressed, you have to poke me with hot irons to get me out of bed, and I can barely make myself do the things I love.

Chris, though? Even when he's at his worst, he will get up and try. He'll try any legal medication, even ones in clinical trials. He'll try any activity you suggest. He'll haul himself up by his own beard to make it to rehearsal, where he plays with the local gay marching band.

He will do more on his worst day than I can do on my best, sometimes. And that's admirable as hell.

So one night, during this rough go of things, Chris and I are struggling together. And something makes me ask him:

dude. wanna get on the phone with me and draw together?

It is an absolutely absurd question.

For one, I don't draw. Drawing is ART, and ART was my sister's talent. My talent was WORDS, growing up, and while my sister grew up to ALSO become a fantastic writer, I stayed away from ART. Too many mistakes waiting to happen. Too much failure right there for the taking.

But I am rapidly approaching rock bottom. And the options seem to be try something new, or resign myself a psychological geology degree.

Chris and turn on our cameras and start drawing. Doodling, really. We make intricate designs and have no idea what we're doing, but as we draw, we talk.

And before I realize it, we've been at it for almost two hours, and I have drawn my first drawing since elementary school. And I don't even hate it.

Or maybe even myself.

Chris says he feels a little better, too.

Every night since then, we've gotten together to draw. We look at videos of intricate doodling and try to copy them, or improvise our own. Until last week, we'd only missed two nights; once, when I was at a wedding, and once when he was at a concert. For the past week, he's been recovering from surgery and hasn't been able to draw, but he's keeping me company while I do. And he cheers me on every time I show him what I've done.

I'm dipping my toes into ART. It's messy and I'm bad at it, and I sometimes rip holes in the paper with all my erasing and I do everything in pencil first, seven times over, and sometimes my shading looks like bad thunderclouds.

But somehow

when Chris and I show up to it together

I don't even hate it.

Or maybe even myself.