Porsche Partum Depression

5/20/16

Forgive me Ferdinand, Ferry and all other Porsche Aficionados……………

I was hurting.  And it took quite some tome to get back to the place best described in a Robert Earl Keen lyric:  Feels So Good Feelin’ Good Again.…

Losing the 1977 Targa was the cause of my pain.  I began calling it Porsche Pain (I love alliterations as much as I love puns)  to myself, even though that did not connote the depth of my feelings of loss. So after the fire I went about trying to restore myself from my current glass is cracked outlook on life to my normal glass is half empty outlook on life.  I tried all my usual stuff when I needed to reset my equilibrium.  Nothing worked.

I tried talking to friends and family.  First I talked to Pam.  She was wonderful and sympathetic for about the first 50 times we talked about it.  She was there for me, but could not quite understand what was taking me so long to get over it.  I mean, she has gone thru childbirth twice and understands real, deep and meaningful pain.  So this event did not move the needle on her Richter scale.

My Porsche friends were not a lot better at helping me.  Sure, they were sympathetic and concerned….of course, their concern was mainly for the Porsche.  That is only a slight exaggeration.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, Pam and I went to a BBQ with Porsche friends the night of the fire.  We had a great time and told lots of stories.  Most of the ones they told related to natural disasters, like hurricanes, floods and fires, especially fires.  I guess they were trying to help by helping me by applying the Misery Loves Company idiom.  That didn’t work either.

I tried talking to friends and coworkers.  Though they were all sympathetic, those conversations did not do the trick.  I did notice, though, that lot’s of people laughed when we talked about the fire.  They were not trying to be mean, but…..The best laugh I got was from my dentist.  I was in the chair when he walked in and said, “Hi Harry.”  Then he doubled over in a fit of lughter.  He could not stop laughing for several minutes.  He was not being mean and was really apologetic.  I went to high school with my dentist and have known him for quite some time and Pam had been in his office the week before so he knew the whole story.  Oh well.

Then I turned to music, my usual mood lifter.  That did not work either, because I found myself listening to an assortment of Country Music songs that expressed pain.  Here is a small sample of what I was drawn to:

• Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s Just a Wave, Not the Water where one lyric goes like this:  I Would Have Killed Myself But It Made No Sense Committing Suicide In Self Defense
• Chris Kristofferson’s Me & Bobby McGee, where one lyric goes like this:  Well I’d Trade All My Tomorrows For A Single Yesterday
• Robert Earl Keen’s Travelin’ Light, where one lyric goes like this:  …Feeling Blue Travelin’ Light With A Hole In Your Soul Where The Wind Blows Through

Music was efinitely not working.  Porsche Pain, as poor a label as it was, still existed.  If I could just get over it………

Yesterday, out of the blue one of my coworkers walks up and practically busts a gut laughing.  I just looked at him as if to say WTF?  I was not offended by his outburst.  I am not a sensitive guy, so there was no reason to take it personally, even though I knew his outburst was related to me.  I just had to wait it out and hear what was making him laugh.  I did brace myself, though, as he is as much of a loose canon as I am.  When he stopped laughing, he spoke three words:  Porsche Partum Depression.

It was all I needed to hear.  Three words that were right on so many levels.  They had Ps.  They had alliteration.  They formed a pun.  They were insensitive.  Better yet, they were politically incorrect.  They conveyed my pain entirely.  Not superficially, like Porsche Pain.  As far as I was concerned they were just perfect.  I laughed out loud.  Really laughed at my experience for the first time.  That was all I needed to move on.

So as I sit here and write this I am feeling so good at feeling good again.