In bed by 9:30 last night. Phone rang 2x, E. checking to see if I'm ok. No. I'm depressed. Drowning. Floundering in water, arms trailing above, watching the light fade as I sink deeper and deeper - depressed. I can see the light, I know that I used to be a part of it and that it was effortless to be there but I'm gone and I don't know how, or why, or what to do to find my way back.
I want to be rescued. To be attached to someone stronger to pull me through, to rely on someone else's strength for a while. I'm tired - no - exhausted and I'm through doing it all on my own.
Today on the subway I watched an older, blind man struggle with his cane - bent parallell to the ground, cane swinging without reason before him, buffeted by the people rushing through the subway. I rushed past too and then stopped and watched him for a few seconds. The platform had cleared and he was making his way towards the stairs leading up to street level but he wasn't moving with direction, with purpose. When I asked if he needed help he responded like someone who was drowning himself. Yes. He was looking for the eastbound trains accessed by the stairs in the opposite direction from which he was headed.
I offered him my arm and we walked down the stairs where, for once, the eastbound train was waiting. My first thought when I began typing this was a question: what right do I have to be depressed? Wah, wah, wah. Life is not what I thought it would be, so what? It's only as I type this that I realize there's something else there for me: the realization that I let someone else attach themself to my strength for a few moments and it felt good. Really good.
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- "Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known" Carl Sagan
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promises made, september 2001
To live a life true to myself. To live with conviction. To dare to live outside the box. To be open. To follow my instincts. To always remember that it is up to me to design a life that matters.
1 comment:
I'm not certain how to respond to depression, sometimes I think of that state as a bath. When you first enter a bath you can luxuriate in the warm, wet substance. The longer you are in it the less habitable it becomes. Instead of being welcoming, it becomes uninhabitable, something to escape from, but something that takes energy to remove yourself from, but you know that when you finally reach out and grab that large, cozy, slighlty rough towel the effort will have been worth it.
Perhaps the initial function of depression is to make us stop, reflect and appreciate what we do have and who we really are.
The challenge is to remember to put the towel close to the bath so you can quickly rescue yourself.
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