I’m conflicted about this space. Some days it feels like the purest expression of myself and what I’m thinking. Some days it feels like a surreal spotlight I’ve thrust myself into where I have to live up to this “healthy living blogger/running blogger/green blogger” stereotype. I try very hard to find to the balance between my own privacy and the spirit of what this blog was created for. I NEVER want this space to seem like a brand I’ve attempted to create for myself (about myself? of myself?) – that feels so very disingenuous. I try to keep things here very light-hearted, which is why it’s difficult when my life seems bogged down with anything BUT light-hearted stories or anecdotes. But, I have to get this out.
Real talk? The last 2 weeks have been a real struggle for me – everything about them has been a struggle. I’ve been sleeping more than I’ve been doing anything else, except maybe loaf around on the couch and watch TV. I have turned down invitations to hang out with friends, I haven’t done a single thing physically active since TWO Sundays ago, I’ve been scavenging for food, I haven’t so much as walked my dog. And it’s not because I’m lazy. I mean, I can be a lazy person. I’m not denying that. But this is more than that. This feels like my depression, my oldest frenemy.
She reared her ugly face right around the time I got PMS a few weeks ago, but now the bitch is trying to rent a room at my house. My depression isn’t sadness or sorrow, which I think might be more cathartic. No, I feel like I’m a toy that’s been run down and my battery light has been blinking for awhile now. My depression is a spectrum of apathy and drowsiness, the kind which turns your whole life into a long chain of arrested development and procrastination. If you just thought: “Snap out of it, girl!” – you’ve never struggled with depression. I would give anything for it to be that easy. Though, my battle with depression no longer feels like I’m a passenger on a train that’s careening down a hill towards a village with no breaks. I don’t feel like the village anymore either, so there’s that. Right now it feels like I barely have the energy to type these words, and I just can’t imagine pulling myself up by the bootstraps right now. My mind whispers to me all day, trying to lure me right back into my bed with promises of sleep.
We are given so very little time on this planet, and I feel like I’ve wasted so much of mine tangled up in varying degrees of depression. It’s sickening, but it’s out of my control for the most part. It’s a very real struggle in my every day life – even on days when I feel fine. I know the only answer is to keep fighting, keep pushing, keep battling through. If I could just get my running shoes on and get out the door, I feel like I could jump start something inside me. Anything would be better than this feeling of just being so drained, so tired, so blah. Sleep, all of the hours of dreamless sleep, reach for me and I let them take me. I remember the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college where I fell asleep one afternoon and slept for 4 days straight, waking up to go to the bathroom and eat every now and then. I truly never want to be in that mental space again: the sleep, followed by the insomnia; the blog which was just cryptic notes and song lyrics, which was really me screaming for help; the broken trail of friendships because I could just never keep it together; the dark place that is always there, just behind my eyelids.
I don’t talk about it much, because frankly, it’s not a place I like to revisit. 10 years ago, a bomb went off inside me and I just couldn’t contain the blast. Every single thing I had ever buried deep down inside came spilling out and I was drowning in all of it. I had the choice whether or not to use a semi-colon or to use a period 10 years ago. I chose not to end the sentence. I chose to take the long, winding, treacherous journey that is “dealing with all of the things for all of time.” I can remember very clearly what that moment felt like – the moment I chose to live – and I think about it often. I think about it most when I’m feeling…well kind of how I’m feeling right now. I am not a quitter, even though it seems like everyone quits on me.
I’m not writing this for applause or for sympathy. Honestly, I’m writing it for myself. Remembering how far I’ve come since then makes my current mental state seem like something I know I can overcome again. And again. And again. I’ve done it before and I will chose that semi-colon every single fucking time I get the opportunity to do so. I may have written this for me, but I’m posting it as a public blog entry for you. Yes, for you. So that if you’re ever feeling like this, you know that you’re not the only one. It gets better. It doesn’t always stay better – some moments, hours, days, weeks, or months are damn harder than others. But it will get better again. Every single morning you chose to wake up, the sun will greet you and remind you that after a darkness will always come a light.
SOLE for the Soul 