Hello friends,
I can tell how depressed I am by how many dirty dishes are in the kitchen. Sometimes it gets so bad that the sink fills up, and the plates and silverware spill out onto the countertop as well. Pots and pans remain on the stove for days. It’s a disgusting sight, which makes me depressed, which makes it difficult to clean, which is disgusting ad infinitum. The dishes are always the first thing to go.
Right now, though, my kitchen is sparkling. The dishwasher is empty. The sink is shiny. There’s not a spec of sauce or oil to be seen on the stove. Even today, with period cramps and hormones wreaking havoc, I managed to clean up yesterday’s mess. This Prozac stuff is good. Even so, I’m not entirely out of the fog.
You know what’s funny? I felt great when I wrote those two paragraphs. Now, two days later, period hormones have taken over. The dishes have piled up. It’s all about balance, though; don’t lean too far one way or the other. Wallowing in depression is paralyzing. Reveling in the good days can make the bad seem worse.
Sometimes I want to disappear into the forest and never be seen again. I want the world to fall away so that my own life doesn’t feel so insignificant. I want to be a story that people tell, but I don’t really want to be a person. Looking back on the poem I wrote at the end of 2019, I think that’s always been true.
I keep re-writing this final paragraph, but nothing seems right. I like the balance of two positive paragraphs and two…let’s call them melancholic paragraphs. Melancholy is a great word. It sounds like what it is, unexpectedly sad, yet beautiful. I’ve always loved that word.
Until next time,
Yardena