Dealing with Depression

When people tell you that you are going to be fine, or that you will heal from a broken heart; most of them say it with whatever sentiments they have left. The few that have somewhat experienced your pain, try to soothe it with comforting words like, “I know how you feel. You are coming out of this.” Words which are mostly camouflaged to make you feel some kind of relief- however brief- so that you can smile again, or be good company. When my first experience with love –the one most people crave- ended, I spent most of my nights awake, waddling in the corridors of my apartment and crying myself to calm in class. It was horrifying to feel loneliness crawl up my skin and seep in to the crevices of my neck again. I was reminded, minute after minute, of her smile and the sound of her voice bouncing off the walls of my ears. I was forlorn of hope, with a melancholic heart and a mind that was undone each morning of everyday. The first weeks were sordid, gruesome even- my heart ripped into shreds, and my life withering away like the ocean wearing away at shore. 

I loved her too much, but more importantly, according to her, I made her feel like she had run a mile after each conversation. She could not endure as I continually buried her underneath layers of my sadness. If I knew then that I had mood swings, and was suffering through depression, of some kind, she would have, perhaps, loved me better with much kindness. Love is like a seed sown into the ground. Only time can prove its strength. The impact of my encounter with depression broke me every night. I wrestled to find sleep. When I found sleep, it rewarded me with nightmares which left scars in my mind. Broken, lost, falling apart, and wishing to be taken away by death. 

Most of the time, it left me cold and dirty as the snow on the side of a freeway. I had no solid ground. I understood the song," On Christ the solid rock I stand..." I did. But it just did not mean much to me. To me, they were words-mere words which did not save me from that sadness raging through my bone marrow. For the most part, I felt worthless. My mind incessantly accentuated death. It broke me, left me clinging to that one thought. Laying down gazing at the ceiling on many nights wishing it to just give in and crush me to death. Wrestling with hopelessness and helplessness, my existence revolved around the thought that I was unfit to love and undeserving of any kind of love. I fed on negative judgmental assumptions of myself; assumptions which downed my spirit and crushed my hopes of breaking free. The day they finally caught fire, I carried a Bible in my jacket pocket and walked to a rocky beach which was about half a mile from my apartment building and tried to throw myself in the ocean. I whispered my prayers, knowing that they would be my last and less painful moments on earth. I did not know joy. Little drops of sadness had worn away my stones of happiness. No matter how many times I painted joy over the walls of sadness that held me prisoner, the walls were still there to remind me that I was a captive. On my best day, I’d feel the happiness bursting through the cracks, and for brief moment, a smile would brighten up my day. I have loved many times but have been in love once, and it almost took my whole life. 

Dealing with depression for me was the most difficult but bravest decision I ever took. I took hold of my life and begun to steer it towards a bright and early liberation. My first experience with true happiness was realizing that I was loved, irrespective of who I was, or what I looked like, or what I didn't look like. I fed on it; day and night it hovered in the deep dark places of my mind and I enjoyed sleeping to such beautiful thoughts. I began to take time to do the things that made my soul happy and provoked beautiful energy. Sometimes, I‘d take long walks at dawn just to think, and to have conversations with myself whilst watching the sun wake up. I learned the hard way that comparison will be the end of me. Because when you don’t have appreciation for who you are; wanting to be something you saw on television or a magazine is the kind of stuff that will wake you up at 4.30am thinking that you are not good enough. Besides the guy/girl in the magazine doesn't look like the guy/girl in the magazine. And for those of you who have had your hearts broken not too long ago, listen: “Sometimes you end up never speaking to someone who meant the world to you again. And that’s okay. You cope and you survive. Admire the beauty inside and out. Accentuate the positive. I now understand that my mind is a window to my soul. Not only does my soul see things through my mind, but the things my mind picks up eventually imprisons or liberates my soul.

The four page love letter I should not have written

At a counseling session, this young lady who could not be any more than 20 looks at me, and  judging by the book that I was reading- The Art of War-, she tells me, "Forgiveness is for you, you know. You need it more than the other person. The bitterness kills you more than it hurts them" I gazed at her, mouth gaping open stuttering who knows what.  A difficult time to fight back. She knew the supreme Art of War and she subdued me with mere words, and the element of surprise. I have been questioned before, even counseled at length about forgiveness and it stuck; so hearing her utter those words with such inspiring confidence was almost like the infamous saying, 'Same shit. Different day'. I later gave a resounding laugh as my response and then took my seat. The Art of War had nothing to do with forgiveness. It was about something completely different. She didn't understand why I was reading it, and I was not given to lengthy explanations to prove a point. Far from the fact that I had no interest in keeping the conversation going, she smiled so many times it was starting to freak me out. Why was I there in the first place? Counseling was unheard of in my neck of the woods- unless of course I was taking a swing at marriage, and I wasn't. The beauty of this whole variant experience and my reason for being there in the first place couldn't have been anything other than love. That "weird whatever they call it these days" was knocking me out of my comfort zone and daring me to do some of the darnedest things I have ever done in my life. Being on the giving end of unrequited love can be- if nothing- frustrating, confusing and your mind is always in a state of wonder, and eternal hope. The latter would not be such a bad thing if not for the endless chain of frailty it puts you in. We have all had that one person who made us feel like we were not good enough no matter how good we were. That one person who made us feel like we mattered when we were just their last maybe, and 'if all else fails' option. Boys do it . And the ladies are no different.

 Deep down we each have an evil twin who takes over who we were really created to be. Time hasn't changed but the times have changed and the beauty of love often escapes us because it is unlike most things we come to meet in the world. Love is not just kindness, or beautiful sensations, or butterflies floating around in the acidic pits of your stomach. For the record, a butterfly can't survive in your stomach. Moreover, those butterflies can be wasps. When your stomach flutters and your hand shakes and your cheeks flush, sometimes it's not love. It's pain. Accept it. Know well.

On the summer of a certain year- which I will not mention- I found myself at the mercy of such unusual sentiments. For those of you who have read my Sunbeams on a beautiful day, it was the edited version of the 4 pages. When I began writing the letter, every nerve in my body writhed in agony, pleading with tearful cries "Ebenezer, please don't do it" I listened and wrested but finally agreed with them. Eventually, when the thought occurred to me again I bowed my head and started scribbling anyway. I took me all about a week; collecting memories that I deemed worthy of the occasion and sampled them together with well orchestrated 'lines', strategically positioned with one goal: to make me look like a knight in shining armor. Last week, when I came across the letter for the first time in many months, I read it hook, line and sinker whilst munching on some crackers a friend had purchased for me. The first thoughts that surfaced, surfed along the lines of mere stupidity. But as I pondered, I realized how far I had come since I closed that chapter of my life. I began to understand that I was a knight in shining armor; just not hers. The beauty of love is not the harmony of reciprocity. The beauty of love- what makes love so desirable- is the giving. Letting it flow from within entrails, and the innermost parts of your spirit. Love is divine. No matter how good you are, and how well you love, the amount of love you receive will never be the same. By God's love we understand and know that we can never love Him the way He does us.  I think that we waste time trying to understand love because it's difficult to accept something you don't understand. More importantly we don't accept the love we don't think we deserve. I will end today's session with a simple question. To love is to choose. It is a choice we wrestle with in the chambers of our mind, and finally we decide. The question is, "Does anyone deserve to be loved?" 

And it begins again

How do you love a boy or a man? Be reminded, young ladies that a rose is a rose is a rose and when a man wants a rose, he wants a rose. If you are not that rose, best be moving on. For those of us who fell in the crevices of love at some point in a past life, we can affirm that being happy and staying happy is not the same thing. Lately, every time I turn on the television, there is a show about love, relationship,  some kind of social problem which has to do with relationships. About 80 percent of the films made in this country center on love. Wait scratch that, 90 percent.  And do not even get me started on the young single ladies who have never been married but somehow feel like their take on marriage is practical. If you have never been married, your advice on marriage is limited to a bunch of theories you can only assume work. Besides there is a reason why your relationship has been long overdue.  “Relationships don’t work in real life like in the movies or television. Will they? Won’t they? And when they finally do, they live happily ever after. Give me a break!” What are you? 9? Even 9 year olds won’t believe that crap! “Bottom line is couples that are truly right for each other wade through the same crap as everybody else but the big difference is, they don’t let it take them down. One of those two people will stand up and fight for that relationship if it’s right.” It is work and lots of it, because nothing is ever as it seems. We get so lost in trying to be the perfect couple when that is just an illusion that seems to escape everybody. Trust, love, forgiveness are the three basics. Don’t get lost in translation because eventually love is what brings two worst people together. Being happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect. It means you've decided to look beyond the imperfections. It’s life! Nothing is perfect. Sometimes, it helps to think that everything will work out, because it actually does. Nothing might be perfect but nothing ever stays the same. Things change. People change. You might think that everything is against you, that life has no meaning and for someone with such good looks and a great social status; everything is supposed to work out for you. But boy do I have news for you. Sh** happens!

Ghost Stories

Time has changed and my heart is in many places- almost lost in translation. I carry a lingering feeling that  you are a different person, and the walls which I built around you have been reduced to ruins. True as that maybe, I remember how your smile, since I last saw it, has stayed with me through some of the crippling days I have experienced. It is one of the few pleasant memories I have of you. To tell you the truth, I never actually thought my mind harbored any memories of you, and now that they are here, I sure am glad. There are days I am taken by your enthralling beauty, which is not a far-fetched reality because I have, deep down somewhere in the halfway corners of my mind, thought that you were a diamond in the rough. Here in the park, taking the beauty of cotton ball clouds profusely distributed through the ocean vault of the firmament in, I am reminded that the seasons of poison have grudgingly dissolved in to something inexplicable. I can't tell what exactly, but after a first date in the park and a second dinner chez moi, my mind has been sending bizarre signals down the valve that connects to my heart. And here we are bearing our hearts out after three cotton candies and a light lunch. I think of you. Each word, as it leaves my lips feels heavy with thoughts of you. Thoughts that have always hovered between my head and my heart like ghost stories. May be I should tell you a story about how I walked through the rain just to surprise you, to tell you that I am falling into memories of you and all the things we never did. Like smiling at each other, and saying little things like hello to each other. Now you see me; looking forthrightly into your eyes-so beautifully dangerous like the lightning, so enchanting to behold. For me there is only you.

If I were to tell you a story, it'll have to be in winter and we'd both have to be seated around a fire  beneath the branches of an old oak tree. Our eyes would be gazing in to the distant night cover as it extends before our eyes. I would hold you under the light of a thousand stars. Then I would tell you a story about how I am incomplete without you.

Sunbeams on beautiful day

Looking at her is like looking at the stars; the feeling is quite beyond words. I can't tell what it is, but I know I just want to keep looking. I've seen beautiful and I've seen her. I've seen the full moon in all its radiance but nothing of her beautiful face.  Words are amiss for the sensation, the shivers and the free falling of the my human soul into this infinite perfection. When my eyes beheld her, I disarmingly watched my defenses succumb to the illusion of her perfection. I wish I could show her, when she’s lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of her own being." There is not a word I couldn't possibly tell her. “Come back to the place where you've always belonged; the place where warmth and love dwell. I'm not ideal. The portraits I paint are for blind eyes. Come back to the start where you find in your heart you've always belonged. True love waits. Can't promise you perfection, can't promise everything you want, but I can promise you all the love I possess. It's not much but when the tide rises, it'll be there, waiting to wrap its arms around you and whisper, "We'll be alright". I want to see your face and know I made it home.

It’s the little things that make my heart smile and they are the things I treasure most about every time we've spent together. We never really talked about anything special or controversial but we never really run out of things to say.

"My hands are roaming the velvet-smooth feeling of being loved. Eyes shut, dreaming of nothing. I want to bring you to the tallest of mountains and the highest of treetops, where no man has gone before. I want to paint you the portrait of what it looks like when the light hits us in that 4:30 pm way. I want to tell you what it feels like to be engulfed by the flames of holding your hand in the cold. Maybe, yes. I’m still lost in this mystifying mist of memories that has left me powerless. I watch my heart go out like a light, thoughtless. I tried to forget but you grew roots around my rib cage, sprouted flowers just below my collar bones. All day I pluck their petals. I have not yet ascertained whether you love me. I sit in my room, alone, using light that peers in-between the cracks of the blind to document the moments I spent with you. The terrible sunlight which gradually sits upon my cracked porcelain fingertips continues to press ink among the pages. As the words gracefully sway out from my lips and onto the pale white piece of paper, the thought of you suddenly brings me back to life. Back to a life I wish I had; a life I long to relive with you. I fell in love with the way you looked at me, the way you held my hand, how you said the right words at the wrong time.

Maybe in the next life, my heart will be like air; felt and unbroken.