Depression: You Don't Live Here No More

Depression.  My old familiar friend. I have been waiting for you.  I knew you would come.  I thought your appearance would be grandiose this time.  I thought you would burst through the door and start the house on fire.  Ah, no, you have never been so bold or forthcoming.   You like to play tricks on me.  Hiding around the corners of the house, waiting to sneak up behind me and laugh while I scream in terror.

Well, goal accomplished.  You have slithered your way back into my life.  What took you so long?  I was prepared for you on the day she died.  I was prepared for you then and the weeks after.  Others were prepared for you as well, but you did not show your face.  You are not so kind.  You like to catch me off guard.

I thought you were coming six days after her death.  While everyone in the house was getting ready for her funeral I laid in bed feeling your presence.  As my mother held me, as I was supposed to be holding my child, I wailed in agony.  I told my mother,  “It’s coming mom, depression is coming. I don’t want it to come again. I can’t handle it this time.”  Through her tears she said in wobbly words, “I know honey, I know,” as she held me tighter.

But you didn’t come then, when I was expecting, when I was prepared.  You came today, without warning and ready to debilitate me again.  You came because my hopes of another child washed down the toilet this month, along with the crimson blood from my loins.  How dare you depression.  How dare you wait until now?

I want you to know I feel you.  I KNOW you.  I know the power you think you have. I remember when we walked together, me in chains, and you holding the key, just six years before.  I remember your smell, your grim odor that lingered through the window before you knocked on my door.  I remember the voyage you took me on, in that small boat out into the sea of darkness.  We ended up like a sunken ship deep within the ocean, dark, damp, hopeless, defeated, empty, and forever lost. 

I remember…. 

And I will not succumb to these deep and dark places again.

Mother Nature has killed my child.  Life has stolen my future plans.  Sadness lives within each cell of my body.  But you Depression, you, do not have a place within this being anymore. 

I will give you today.  Today will be your day to beat me, bruise me, try to break me if you must.  But you only have today. Because tomorrow I have some more living to do.   I have some more loving to get on with.  I have things stronger than you to own this house. 

So, have your way with me today, Depression, if you must.  For tomorrow is a new dawn and you will be kicked out at sunrise, because HOPE lives here now.