Every serious episode of depression
is a murder mystery.
Your old self is gone
and in its place is a ghost
that is unable to feel any pleasure in food,
conversation
or in any of your usual forms of entertainment.
You become a body bag.
Moving a pile of books can take days,
as the objects in a room have a stronger will than your own.
You are both the corpse and the detective.
Without alibis
- work, a social life -
there’s nowhere to go.
Your job is to find out
which part of you has died
and why it had to be killed.
- Gwyneth Lewis, “Sunbathing in the Rain“

If life was about right or wrong, good or bad, strong or weak, love or hate, white or black - I’d be wrong, bad, weak, hate and black. Fortunately, that’s not the case. Fortunately, life is more a matter of degrees, of tentative knowledge and of shades of grey.

However that doesn’t stop those days appearing when you not only loathe life but also yourself. Days when you wake up and find yourself wanting to rip your heart out, not only because someone or something has done you wrong, but also because you have done yourself wrong. Somedays you wake up and you just can’t face yourself. Literally.

I walked through today like a balloon heating up. A thin fragile rubber balloon growing with the expanding gas within. Waiting to burst. Waiting to explode. Wanting to wail. And wanting to rip my heart out.

I wished I had. Ripped my heart out. I wished I had done it long ago. Back when the decision seemed clear and when opportunity presented itself. When things were simpler. When I could have walked away and not look back. Instead I did. And I let it fester and consume me. It ate me out. I ate me out. Now… now, I’m just waiting for it to explode.

Isn’t anyone tryin to find me?
Won’t someone please take me home
It’s a damn cold night
Trying to figure out this life
Wont you take me by the hand
take me somewhere new
I dont know who you are
but I’m, I’m with you
oh why is everything so confusing
maybe I’m just out of my mind
- Avril Lavigne, “I’m With You”

You wake up and there are days you just don’t want to face the world. But you do anyway. You go to the loo, put on your face and dress up. You step out the doors and immediately brace yourself… You brave the world anyway because it’s not the world that’s wrong, bad, weak, hate and black. Some days it’s you. Some days, you know you’re not good for your friends. Some days, you’re not good for you. And you wonder why you put up with it.

Mars, as it aligns antagonistically to Uranus, implies that there is a piece of information that you are none too happy about. You keep looking for clever ways to free yourself from its implications. Maybe it is not true. Maybe it is but there is a way to turn it to your advantage. Maybe, if only you can persuade someone of something, you can alter the situation dramatically. There is, though, an even more intelligent way to proceed. It involves accepting that, even if you can change the way things are, you are better off changing your mind about what you want.
- Cainer, for today

Posted on March 25th, 2004 by jl
Filed under: Notable: Personal