It’s been long since I wrote here. I’ve lost it all. My job. My lovers. Or at least almost all. I suppose saying that I’ve lost it all would be a self-pitying exaggeration. I’ve left my beloved city of New York City for greener career pastures in D.C. only to find that it seems so fake and unreal in comparison. But then again, nothing compares to NYC.
Some of the things above, I’m over. The lovers? Eh, the further way I get from it the more I realize that it was not meant to be, at least not forever. All happens to, at the very least, teach us lessons. But losing NYC…gods, losing NYC. It hasn’t stopped hurting. I’m not sure that it will until I somehow make my way back there. It doesn’t matter that I’m getting paid to save the world. Not even that saves me from myself, let alone the lack of the City. Hell, I’m not even in D.C. I’m in the concrete suburban mass of Arlington.
I also lost the creativity that I was finally pushing myself to let out. It just went *poof*.
No, that’s not right. *poof* seems all peaceful. There was nothing peaceful about what I’ve put myself and those around me through.
Depression shut me down. It shut it all down. I have these UP times in which I can accomplish anything. Then there are the down times. I just never realized the true meaning of “breakdown”until I had it. Depression (down) settled in for a long visit. It lost me so much.
Worst of all, it lost me not only all of my physical strength and my will to live, but my mental strength as well. Now I am recovering. I occasionally take two steps back for one that I’ve taken forward. However, as I climb out of the abyss, I can’t help but notice the irony of it all. I was quite literally mentally paralyzed and yet here it was, the exact state of mind to create the situations that could provide endless material for songs, fiction, non-fiction, etc. Whatever my incapacitated mind could think of doing then or later, it would find an inner library filled with experiences, mental trips through hell, trials and tribulations and loss, inner struggles, gains and losses, new experiences I never wanted or asked for, both good and bad, tempting habits and escapes…
As I climb out of the abyss, slipping back a bit here and there, I realize I can’t let it all have happened for nothing. From destruction let the creativity happen.
Recently I’d seem to start slipping back into that abyss I keep referring to. Along came a gentleman yesterday. It was as if fate sent him my way for a reason. He was walking clinical depression. He was on a second interview and it was his job to follow me around and get a feel for what his position would be like. Within 10 minutes I was pretty sure that I would not be recommending him for hire. His negativity radiated. Throughout the day all I heard him say is “Everything I do is wrong.” though no one had told him he was wrong. He had a view of how the world should look that day and it was not looking that way and he couldn’t deal with it. So at one point he handed me the clipboard we’d given him to carry around and just silently walked away. With him seem to slip away that depression that had seem to overcome me lately.
I watched the depression walk away.
