sadness

It’s been a dark time for me, lately. The sort I’m not sure I can make it through. In addition to my depression, which makes it nearly impossible to get out of bed for work every day, I also have this weird thing where I get mono symptoms every so often. It happens more when I am stressed or overtired, and with insomnia and an 8-5 job I am always overtired. Right now I am in the throes of exactly that sort of time. My energy, which is always low, is non-existent, and the depression has latched onto it with a vengeance.

I’m at the point of wanting to give up on everything. I have no hope left. I just want to curl up in a dark room and stay there for the next six months. Despair is a difficult thing to face. There is nothing I can do to change it. I’ve been trying to do my ‘Things I’m Thankful For’ posts because I’ve heard that making lists of things you are thankful for improves brain chemistry. So far, the whole fake it ’til you make it philosophy is not helping to pull me out of the darkness.

I want to write for a living, but I’m coming to a place where I’m starting to realize more and more that I just don’t have the talent for that. That feels like an overwhelming reality. A death I can’t imagine overcoming. I still want to believe that if I was able to devote all of my time to writing fiction I would be good enough to write something worthwhile, but at the end of the day I just don’t have a realistic prospect in which I have any energy left over after a day or week of work to pour myself into fiction the way I would want to.

To say it is frustrating is too much of an understatement. I’m not really sure what to do, so I am just writing this steam of consciousness blog post in the hope I might exorcise a demon or two, while also sending the proverbial message in a bottle out into the vast sphere of the internet, hoping that something will stick in my life and something will somehow start to make sense.

/ sorrow found me when i was young / sorrow waited, sorrow won / sorrow, they put me on the pills / it’s in my honey, it’s in my milk /

Those lyrics by The National are probably the most profoundly accurate description of my depression I’ve ever heard, that I didn’t write for myself. The best I can do myself is that depression makes it so that I most often feel like my soul is trying to breathe through a wet blanket. Like something deep inside me can never get enough oxygen and is weary and tired.

I haven’t felt like doing any of the things I love doing lately. I’ve heard that when most people are feeling down, they do things they love doing, take some time for themselves, and that often makes them feel better. Depression doesn’t allow for that. Instead, the things I love doing most are poisoned by the vice in my chest. It’s in my honey. It’s in my milk. Milk and honey, the ancient symbol of blessing and promise, but what does one do when even blessing and promise are tainted.

I love reading, watching movies, watching good television, playing video games, and above all, writing. I’m not sure how to cope when all of those things feel like overwhelming chores. It’s hard enough to do my actual chores. What happens when my breaks feel like chores?

Today is a rough day, but I’m thankful because yesterday was a bit of an oasis. We were with friends for a 7 course feast that lasted somewhere around 10 hours. It was one of the few times in months that I’ve honestly felt good, eating and drinking and laughing with friends.

Hebrew scripture has this story of a prophet who was wandering in a stormy wilderness, when God sent an angel to let the prophet rest in a cleft of rock while his needs were attended to. Yet, the angel warned him that it was only a brief reprieve. The prophet’s lonely journey wasn’t over, he had to go back out into the stormy wilderness again after he got some rest. I worry that yesterday was just a short moment in the cleft of the rock, but I’m thankful for it all the same.

I’m trying to force myself into goodness, whether I can feel it or not. I will pledge to write every day again. Not that all of it will make it onto the internet, but I will write something all the same. Hell, I guess I could put anything on the internet though, if this stream of consciousness can make it up here.

I think I am going to try to post something I’m thankful for every day as well. Something to remind me that even when I can’t feel it, there is profound goodness in my life.

I’m thankful for my friends, for good drinks and delicious food, for song lyrics that connect with my core, and for sitting here and writing for just a few minutes.

i see a darkness.

it’s in my honey, it’s in my milk.