⎡ You don’t need another human being to make your life complete, but let’s be honest. Having your wounds kissed by someone who doesn’t see them as disasters in your soul, but cracks to put their love into, is the most calming thing in this world. ⎦

***

Around me the sun keeps rising and setting. The traffic keeps pressing through in the most unrelenting way. The clouds rolls by, the holidays happen. Everyone talks about how they can’t believe October is over and Christmas is almost here. And I smile as if I were just excited as them.

But really, if I were being truly honest, I’d admit that nothing has felt different since August. Rather everything feels blurry, muffled. I’ve lost track of the days and the nights because instead of being individual sunrises and sunsets, it’s just another day of me feeling like I'm walking upstream against a raging current. And instead of fighting, instead of it feeling like a challenge, I'm just getting tired.

Too many times I’ve just lain in bed avoiding any and every responsibility. I stood at the sink watching the tap running and I wished for a second that I’d go down with it into some abyss where there are not problems outside of wondering where the end of the pipe will take me.

The stereotypical depressed person is always in the dark, maybe with ugly, forlorn, black, mascara streaks painting her cheeks or maybe with staring with this bloodshot, red eyes from popping vessels while sobbing. And they sit alone, still in the dark, with that unnecessary war paint, contemplating how much better the world would be without them. And even though that’s a stereotype, sometimes that monster comes in rearing it’s nasty head and messes everything up.

As terrible as the extreme depression, the scary feeling of doom that exists, more often than not, it’s a different monster. And it’s a monster that doesn’t exist in the crazy highs or lows and because of that; it isn’t as easy to spot. It hangs out in the corners undetected just waiting until it can latch on and never let go.

Depression sometimes is a feeling of utter desolation, but what about when it isn’t?

It’s seeing all of the colour pencils laid out in front of me, the entire 48 colors Faber-Castell I always coveted since little, every single color I could possibly imagine. It’s seeing them and having the ability to pick any color, but only being able to force myself back to the same broken grey pencil day after day after day.

It’s watching people promote asinine things like “drinking more tea” and “running for the endorphins” and thinking, “Fine. I’ll give it a damn shot.” But then my bladder is bursting from the 18th cup of stupid chamomile and my knees and ankles are aching from running for hours, but even after heeding all of this naturopathic bullshit, all I still want is to just sit on the kitchen floor and eventually blend into the surroundings, ceasing to be me because being me is getting exhausting.

It’s hearing about how Prozac changed someone’s life and how therapy is their everything, so I keep looking for patients who's prescribed with this in the clinic, interview them and ask if they really do work. Honestly? I am tempted and have come this close to try, but as usual, I'm too much of a coward to do it.

I did all of the things I'm supposed to do but nothing’s different. It’s typing "how to get over your ex" on Google search at 4 AM for any possible answer, but still not wanting to smile at jokes on 9gag or text anyone back because I just suck.

It’s feeling like the same bland, sad, murky version of myself day after day and just wondering if this is how the rest of my life will be.

So even though I got up this morning and I felt like nothing was different, I feel like I’ve accepted that I will never have highs again, I still feel like I'm looking through fogged up glasses, and I'm simply going through the motions, there’s one thing to keep in mind.

I did get up.

And even though my world right now is that broken grey, my vision is clouded, and I'm choking down more tea to try and “naturally cure yourself”, one day it won’t feel that way. It might not be tomorrow, or next month, but eventually it will be one day.

That day my eyes will be clear, my heart won’t be heavy, and I’ll find myself reaching for an orange juice or a green tea while I order a coffee because... why not?

I just have to keep getting up.