You’re weak. You aren’t usually, but right now, you’re weak. You need somebody to talk to. You need to spread that weakness out, knead it as if it were a cramp, but, tonight, there is no one.
You’ve laid out this string of thoughts in your head on more than one occasion, but now that you’re finally putting it out there, you know it isn’t going to be the same. The sanctity of the thought– the feeling’s lineage– has been lost. You do it anyway.
You are depressed right now. You might be for the next few hours. You might be for the next few days. Your common state is far away from this, but you can’t avoid these things when they hit. You don’t take comfort, but at least can find some stability in knowing you aren’t alone. Successful people, happy people, miserable ones, lonely ones, the deceased, and unborn, all do, or will experience it to some degree. You don’t beat yourself up anymore. Not since you read that girl’s comic, you more easily accept that this comes on with no purpose. You were inspired by something; that’s a good sign.
You know beating yourself up about it will lead to no good. You just accept it.
When you feel this way, you open up that album of ugly thoughts. You try to keep it out of reach; put it on the top shelf, but somehow it keeps getting knocked down and you trip over it. It is in front of you right now. You open it.
You feel alone. That’s not a big deal, but you feel increasingly alone. Each day that passes, you feel a little bit more alone. You have those friends that are out of the country right now. Of those, the one you actually talk to regularly isn’t around right now. He has his own thing he is going through, but when you do talk to him, one of you always feels distracted. It’s like you’re looking at each other and trying to make out details through a thick layer of fog. You only really know that the person is there, but for all you know, it is just an impostor. You have the friends who are all busy with work, and when not with work, with things such as fiancé/eés, spouses, or lives. Or the one who is on the relationship seesaw, up and down, on and off; she rarely feels like she is even there anymore. Or one of the newer ones, but you don’t feel like it is a two way street on opening up to each other, plus they don’t live nearby. There is the globetrotter, the one who will become The Dude when he is older, and so on.
You know this doesn’t even count all the estranged ones. You feel like estrangement is all you’re good at. You get close, then the bomb gets planted. It ticks until one day it ticks no more, and all that is left is rubble. And this is why you feel increasingly alone. You forecast each day and expect another one to drop off. You will either watch them slip away, or you will cut their hand off. You don’t feel good.
Never mind that you often feel like you need to be the one who is there for them. The iron curtain of security. You don’t even want to think about your family.
You are losing your imagination. You’ve seen it. You’ve been stuck at home. You’re twenty-five years old, and stuck at home. It hasn’t quite been two years, but it feels like much longer. You want to start your life, but you can’t seem to do it. As long as you live here, you feel like that is impossible. You’re living in a coffin; trapped in a box, and buried beneath the ground. You no longer can see yourself getting out. You can’t imagine that day. You lost your imagination. You realize you lost your hope, too.
You own nothing. You’re American. Sole-proprietorship is hardwired into your brain, but you don’t have your own place, you have to share your car, you don’t even have your own laptop anymore. You’re upset by how much weight this carries. You’re also upset at how much these things stack.
You’ve keep busy by caring. You care a lot. You care for a lot. Even though you know numerous who sometimes feel nobody is going out of their way to care for them, you look into the mirror and reject it. On a day like today, you feel like nobody really cares unless you care. You don’t want to reach out today. You don’t know if you want to reach out ever. You plan to either sink, or have someone come pull you out of the arctic.
You can’t figure out if you’re useful. You have come to think you are, because you grew up feeling more talented than most. You worked hard to become better, but you find those who have less of both far ahead of you. You get opportunities, and you sleep through them, instead of attacking it. Your true talent might come in the form of squandering everything away.
You don’t like any of this. You wonder, skeptically, who compiled this album. It is revolting. A disgusting, dangerous collection of thoughts, feelings, and memories, but you keep turning the pages.
You never thought your 20’s would be like this. History says the Great Depression came at the end of the 20’s. You would rather be paralleling history. Your Great Depression has come a bit sooner.
You’re bored. You thought you gave up boredom with your teens, but these days, you are often bored. You know if you think about that boredom any further, you’re just going to flip back to page one.
You close the album. You know that this is just a pothole, and when you zoom out this is the final upswing. You just have to find enough thrust to outrun gravity. But for today, you are weak. You aren’t happy about that, but you accept it.
You accept it. In an effort of obscurity, you tuck as much of it you can into your pocket, then you carry on. Right now, it’s all you can do. Different than it was in the past, and different it will be, for now, this is your life.