CW: depression, anxiety, death

With incoming snow, a 66°F-day, and a depression that wouldn’t quit, I had to visit the graveyard.

You see, as someone who lives with both depression and anxiety—and well, chronic pain—I work really fucking hard to maintain my chill. You won’t see any of this, of course. It’s behind the scenes, like a play.

You don’t see or hear beyond the curtain, the nagging voice between my guaged ears that goes:

you’re mediocre

no one likes you

you’re still a nobody 

you did this to yourself

you’re not doing enough

you’ll always be average

Why does this hurt now?

the pain will never go away

you won’t become anyone great

you’re not going to be successful in the future

there’s so much to do and not enough time to do it 

there won’t be a future, the world is crumbling to bits

do you remember when you fucked this up? or this? and this?

you can’t live in the present because there’s too much to do to set up for the future

Some days are worse than others and the incessant thoughts on that warm winter afternoon needed some fresh air, and perspective. 

Walking along the broken gravel, leg-sized tree roots bursting through cement, Otis Redding’s Love Man playing, I saw row after row after row of headstones. Some marked with flowers and flags. Others crumbling. People who’ve died centuries ago. Bodies still decomposing.  

Did I want to join them?

No.

But I wanted a break. An extended break. Something you don’t get over the weekend when there are dirty toilet bowls and taxes and groceries and social gatherings and oil changes and crumbs beneath the table and hair clogging the shower drain and deciding what’s for dinner for the millionth time.

It’s not something found on a week-long vacation in Mallorca, cycling along the coastline, or Dublin, drinking Guinness with black currant in the International, or wading through the hot springs of the Blue Lagoon in Reykjavík.

It’s a Dark Passenger like in Dexter, but without the killing. It’s a feeling that rides alongside and only sometimes does it disappear when you’re distracted enough.

Returning to our stoop after memento mori’ing through the graveyard, I sat down and soaked in the warmth.

“I’ll be okay,” I said.

“Things will be okay.”

“I can do this.”

And the day continued, but with a little more sun.

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