I stand next to this twin of mine. This twin that looks as much like me as a sewer does a stream. It is bent over under the burden of an invisible weight. I hold my cane behind my back and debate going it alone. It has the nose of Cyrano with a stout end. Mine is nothing special but normal all the same. Its ears droop and it drags along in a tired sort of way. I stand upright wearing my a silver wrist watch and finely laced black leather shoes. I wear a crisp peacoat tailored to my tall frame while it is draped in an ill-fitting sheet with a ghostly silhouette. There is nothing gentle or feminine about it, nothing bold or masculine. This is not my twin whose beige skin is broken along like the cracks of a concrete wall, broken and to the mercy of any passersby. This is not my twin that walks beside me, always chained to me where our feet meet the sidewalk. This is not my shadow.
Tag: mentalillness
Afraid of the dark.
I’m feeling better. This is the moment that always scares me because it is in such close proximity to when I have felt my worst and I can still taste that bitterness and feel how it makes my mouth water as if I’m going to vomit so violently I can feel my stomach spasm. I’m feeling better but I still remember vividly how it was and how it could be.
Depression takes such a strong hold of me when I’m in its throes that I get to a point where I can’t really remember the feelings I had outside of it. It is like somebody reached inside me and took out the best emotions and left only the most shallow, dark, or destructive. I don’t miss being happy in those times because I don’t really believe I was ever happy. I know I was, at some point, logically, the way you just know the sun has risen before and warmed the Earth when you step outside on a morning mid-winter and it’s cold, dark, and you can see your breath more immediately. You have to prepare yourself for the uncomfortable chill that comes from stepping out of a hot shower and even if you’re so cold you can’t physically bring the feeling to your skin, you know that at some point you rushed outside half-clothed, sprinting across the grass to leap in a cold, blue pool. While your mind has memory of it, your body has none, not even the memory of a feeling.
But exiting depression is the opposite, like stepping out of a dark movie theater directly into the mid-day sunlight. It’s almost blinding. You’re glad it’s sunny but the jolt is startling because part of you is still sitting in the dark and trying to decide if you want to leave the familiar comfort of a seat you’ve been in for several hours, only starting to stir and not eager to wake up. You begin to brim with energy at the idea that you have the rest of the Sunday afternoon to get things done, to be productive, and to be outside in your neighborhood and a part of the world but you still know at some point it will get dark again. It won’t always be like this and the night will blanket your world and the dark black of it will fill the spaces between your house and your neighbors’ and between you and anybody else. It makes you enjoy the sunlight more but you do so reservedly this time, unable to love it without abandon. As good as it feels, as much as its energy radiates your skin and your soul stretches satisfying after a long nap, at the back of your mind you’re already afraid of the dark.
Building Atlas 