A Comeback Divided

Everything dies baby, that’s a fact,
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back…

And I feel me coursing through my blood again, which is a near impossible thing to explain to someone who has never been depressed. You stop taking care of yourself and your needs the way you should, and you wake up one morning with your head in a fog. The world is blunted. You feel no hope. You dream of guns and car crashes. You can’t focus. There’s no motivation. There’s no joy in anything–the sunshine, the laughter, the games, the drink.

The drink. Something you’d enjoyed with friends, and quite responsibly, since 21. Sure there was a night here (maybe a campus house and beer pong) and a morning there (“Nesquick” and Halo) that were a little out of line, but you certainly never even bordered on alcoholic. You were one of those who could take simple pleasure in the way a beer tasted. You’d spend fifteen bucks on four beers and leave the cases to the drunks and college kids. But you knew, you learned, it made no sense to try to pull yourself out of a depression with your right hand while downing a drug, a depressant, with your left. And so you kicked it to the curb; no loss.

You feel the disease, the depression, running it’s course. You can tell the end is near; it’s lifting. You spend the last few days in your apartment. Shut off from the world. Occasionally responding to texts, playing your turn on Words With Friends, but you’re really in your head the whole time. You’re doing work. You’re getting your shit straight. And you hope your friends understand. You hope you can stay focused this time. No more excuses. No more distractions. Pretty girls, bright lights. Nah. This is your time. Get your head right, kid.

You feel the depression within you (And that’s just what it is, a depression. You’re not bipolar, thank God. Your heart goes out to those who deal with the two-headed beast that is manic-depression.), bucking, breaking. You know that soon you’ll be able to cut your fingernails without a two hour peptalk. That soon you’ll be able to laugh at your favorite TV show, go out for coffee, stay awake past 8 PM, and sleep past 4:30 in the morning.

You know that soon you’ll be yourself again. And you know that there’s no time like the present to do the things you know you can do.

2012 is, by all accounts, your year. It ended on a down note. But you take solace in the fact that you’ve found the bottom before in your life, on May 15, 2011. You take solace in the fact that you were able to recognize the signs from that horrible night and find a foothold in the side of this mountain. You may not be exactly where you want to be, but you know you’ll be there soon.

And the snow falls in Worcester, and West Street awaits.
It’s the new year, after all. Make it yours, kid.