hello depression my old friend

i guess we're talking once again

A list of reasons why I might be depressed which acknowledges out of the gate that none of these are probably it and that in fact there probably is no reason and that trying to ‘solve’ the problem of sadness is itself a quicksand that

1. It’s dec 10 or 11 and i haven’t yet scheduled any batcave events for the month which is a great bad thing I am doing but cannot help. Or can I? I don’t know. There is shame in both and shame in neither and this is the thing, this shame, that permeates all like an oil spill seeping.

2. I am more dramatic and more emotional and sensitive and angry than usual.

3. Especially angry. That’s the big one, which I am hearing is a defense for shame? Makes me angry just thinking about it. Or does it make me sad?

4. Hey, at least I’m still feeling things. There’s this book The Noonday Demon, an atlas of depression, and in it the author talks about how there are two kinds of depression, the slow and steady minor kind and the major breakdown collapse. I’ve got the first one, if any at all, for I’m not, as is the case in the author’s own detailed breakdown in the book, lying in bed unable to move or go to the bathroom or eat.

5. I started smoking weed again thinking it could be different this time and perhaps for a minute it was because it always is until it isn’t and now I’ve stopped and it’s been a week and I’m in withdrawal which is a real thing whether or not you choose to believe it.

6. I’m not sure what i hope will happen from writing this, less even from publishing it, but maybe that’s okay? Maybe that’s good. Maybe I’ve become too focused on how things will be received and not enough on the raw and random nature of the dance itself. Or maybe I’m deluding myself on all fronts.

7. I have been worse than normal about responding to texts and emails and for this I am sorry. I will try to get back to you soon I really will.

8. The antidepressants surely must have something to do with this. I’m down to 40mg on the ‘zac, which is 50% less than I used to take - 80mg Prozac. You lose the “pro” when you take away those first 40mg, so you’re just left with ‘zac (source: math). I don’t notice a huge difference but I guess that’s the point. This medication is like great film editing - when it works, you have no idea it’s there. But now it’s gone and the film that is my life is wonky and poorly cut - another montage? Way too much voiceover. It’s good though, it really is, and maybe I’m feeling the things I wasn’t before, though I’m not sure feelings really work that way (source: self).

Feelings are fickle and fortune is fame, so get off the crapper and go play a game.

This line came to me unbidden the way that lines often do. Is it good? Probably not, but it is itself something and that is more than nothing and for that i am grateful, I guess, though I take issue with that word.

Grateful? Get a room.

That’d be a good name for a hotel - ‘Get A Room.’ When am I gonna get rich from one of these ideas? Never, hopefully, for that’d be a lottery-winning kiss of death that’d lay gentle wreckage to whatever strength and chutzpah currently propel my life forward in the day to day.

Let’s just end here: I know I am lucky, but the best water in the world - the beautiful, goofy kids and amazing, understanding, accepting and beautiful perfect soul human wife, the jobs and friends and parents and family and success, none of it will mix with that oily black of darkness, once it’s in the glass. Half full of water, sure, but even a drop o’ oil can spoil the broth.

It doesn’t have to, and often it won’t, but sometimes it does and that’s okay. For me and also for you out there, sad as a thicket, bare as a winter.

Look at this guy, doing poetry, what the hell.

I wish I could just own the things I do instead of apologizing for them or laughing at them. Sometimes, I can. That’s gotta be enough.

Thanks for reading this. You’re all golden gods and so am I. We’ll make it through because we already have. I feel better for having written this. Closer to myself. Less estranged, or at least a stranger I recognize as myself.

Oh and mom + dad — don’t worry, I’m okay. I’m good. Just dancin’ in the oily rain.