Susan Senator

Why down? Why now? No reason on earth. The mind just roams, searching, digging for the reason for the sad, ostensibly to pounce on it, crush it, make it so flat as to disappear it. But — the law of conservation of matter — so that can’t happen. Or is sadness an energy, rather than matter?

Doesn’t matter.

Somehow there is food attached. Or Food, as a big concept. Food I just ate. Food I want to eat. Food I can’t eat. Hours until I can eat again. And then it all falls to that: hours. There are hours worth of what I am supposed to do but really that I can postpone so why do it when I don’t feel like it? But if it’s supposed to get done, why put it off?

My body sighs, knowing that there is nothing to know. It is just this way, has been for my entire life. Well, except when it’s not. Pockets of time. A lot to do but nothing to do. So then it becomes a stretch of time to get through. And then: what a waste of time, of life. And so, even more reason to feel bad.

This is why depression has nothing to do with reason, with logic, with smarts. Depression is about the Nothing. It makes no sense, yet it becomes my entire reality.

To me it looks like a hated stretch of time that I hate myself for hating.

I look around, thinking, eat or sleep? The third is unthinkable.

And then I see the window and the light out there. It is a matte white light because it’s raining. Oh that’s why, many will say. No that’s not why. Because sun doesn’t change it when it’s there. James Taylor said it right, “I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end.” To me that meant they just went on and on and because I was sad while it was sunny that made it worse. Now I wonder if he meant he thought they’d never end, meaning he was enjoying them so much he didn’t have time to realize it wouldn’t last. Actually, that is probably what he meant, but I’ve known that song since third grade and always thought it was a person wishing all the happy sun would just fucking stop because they just can’t.

But still, there’s light, and it’s outside, which makes me realize I could do that: just go out.

But what if that’s nothing, too? Then I’ve tried the one thing that looked positive and it’s also a pocket.

Once again, too much thinking. Just go and see.