Let me tell you a story. It's the story of someone who has spent most of his life living with depression. He's felt invisible and unwanted for months at a time with occasional manic bright spots in between bookends of sadness. It's led to some really awful places over the years. It's cost in wasted days has no measure.
You know it's me and I've had a number of proverbial 'one of those days' days of late. I've been here before and know the signs. Over the years, I've learned some ways to keep the struggles mostly at bay and I can usually hang on and function at least marginally through such times. But every so often...particularly in November and December, the thread breaks, the monster roars and I collapse inside. Sometimes there's a hangover into January and sometimes even as far as March before I can stop 'gazing into the abyss'. These are when every hour is a slog. Most of the time I bury it under being busy or working or or doing. And then there's days when I just can't. My coping strategies can't keep up. It's a feeling of hopelessness and helplessness.
I fell apart again in a bad way you see. My old enemy, The Black was hovering in the background waiting for a shot and then I spilled coffee on the couch. Next thing I know, I'm sobbing. I'm on the floor staring at nothing. It's like that. A little trigger or a tiny push and I'm gone. It only takes a casual word sometimes...something that a normal person wouldn't even notice. But it crushes me. The next few days got sucked up in fighting off paralysis. Plodding on through the minutes just to keep going. Put your head down and just keep going.
The "Holiday" season in particular is always like that and always the worst. I've written about it before and it hasn't changed much. It's isolating, sad, exhausting and dark.
Thanksgiving 2022 was another one where I wondered why I was even there. I would have been better off working and not inflicting my loneliness on everyone...not that they noticed much anyway. Everyone was busy and I felt like a complete outsider in my own home. I don't speak TikTok or Snapchat or football or really much of anything that interests anyone. Nobody cares about trains or bicycles or rockets or skating or pretty much any of the oddball things that interest me. Attempts to talk about anything that matters to anyone else fall flat and awkward. I can't stay out of the way in the kitchen and there's nowhere to fit in the living room. As is so often the way of my world, I am surrounded by people and completely alone.
2023 was the second year in a row that it was awful. I was actually hoping to be working knowing what was coming but made it home at two in the morning. I woke up after 5 hours dreading it so much I couldn't fall back asleep.
People started showing up at noon and off we go. Hardly anyone said hello to me when they walked in. They know each other and it's a big family reunion that I don't fit into. The chatter quickly got so intense that I couldn't hear anything but white noise. Just layers of loud and snippets of conversations I wasn't part of. I felt like running. No one noticed. I just made excuses that I was tired and tried to be invisible. Standing by the corner out of sight and out of mind. I felt like sobbing. No one cared anyway. I hid upstairs with wine when it became too much to stand. I'm just being ignored and in the way. I sat at the dinner table in a blur of lonliness. Sitting next to Kellie all alone again. Awkward. Miserable.
It doesn't help that I miss my kids. I saw posted pics and videos of my granddaughter laughing and playing in Florida with my ex. The granddaughter I don't know because she can't come here for some reason. I suspect I'll never know her.
My sons are with visiting my ex and I'm here because she puts on the big show and pays airfares and is ever the better grandparent I guess. It cuts deep but I can't say anything because it might make someone feel bad. Wish that one time I mattered enough to put ahead of inlaws, exes and everyone else. Just once.
But then I'm not so I stand and take it. It hurts so much.
So once again, it all comes together and I'm not sure why I worried about being home from work at all. I guess I'm supposed to. You'd think I'd know by now. My presence is neither needed nor noticed in the rush. I should learn that it's better to just miss these things and pretend that it matters to anyone. The world goes on as it has for so long without me being there. People get used to the idea that I might be away and so they make plans for that. If I happen to be around, it's just weird because they weren't really expecting me anyway. Nobody even knows what to say to me when I do appear because I'm such a stranger to everyone. It bleeds me out. I want to run somewhere but the garage hides horrors of it's own and my hobby bench or office is within earshot of laughter and fun that I'm not a part of. Just try to smile and keep pushing.
I saw myself in the bathroom mirror. I saw that face again. Kellie says she knows the look when it's like this. I do too. I saw my father wear it often. It's just blank. A far, far look in his eyes. I have photos of him behind it and I know what he was feeling. A flicker of a smile on demand and then nothing. Oh yes, I know it well...it's baked-in empty with a layer of sad and frosted in lonely with a single candle on top of the cupcake. That tiny little flame is all that's holding the world together and it's so very fragile...struggling not to be blown out by a whisper of breeze.
The failing light that you fight so hard to hang onto because if it goes out, there's nothing left at all.
