For the past few months my self-doubts and insecurities have bubbled up more than my mouth or the words I type on various websites would like to admit. To the point of letting depression grasp what I have worked so hard to attain. A loving relationship with my wife, two kids who want daddy to play with them at any given moment, gaining professional status and praise for jobs well done. All good things.
Depression isn't really ever defeated in the sense of never coming back, more like pushed down a drain by medication, friends, family, and using the garbage disposal for several minutes to churn it into fine particals to be sent into the sewers. But, it always comes back. How much a person lets those dark, rabbit hole thoughts invade depends if others can see how much you're hurting.
We've all watched the Charlie Sheen live-action "mental illness" episode for the past month or so, and its a testament to those who let themselves go just how creative and entertaining such a thing can be. His drug of choice is an eight-ball off a Brazilian hooker's ass, mine sits above the charcoal black stove with the words "spiced rum" across the label. Granted for the most part, I am an upstanding citizen, I don't show up for work blitzed, never getting hammered around my children, choosing to sink into my rabbit hole of a couch a few times a week hoping the strength will be there to climb out the next day.
Robert Jordan (real name James Rigney Jr.), author of several very long books of Fantasy genre on the "Wheel of Time". It's main character, Rand, struggles throughout the series with battles of the mind in a classic good vs. evil sense. He enters "the void" to calm himself, and make the magic within to come alive. Jordan can describe that "void" much better than I could ever hope to, it where creativity has no bounds, no social or moral eraser, just a continuous flow of words and ideas that leave others to marvel at its output. If I ever took myself seriously as a writer, a bottle of Captain would sit right next to my black Toshiba with the power cord that looks like its been chewed by a hampster and pen whatever exits that void and it would be ten times better than the sober words you're reading right now.
I skipped out on a social gathering last weekend due to this. While I didn't pen a thing, it was to be alone, with no noises to embrace the quiet. Sure I had hair metal blaring in my ears and the ping of online poker on the screen, but they were hardly heard, barely a whisper to where I was really at. Standing alone with no worries of final papers, getting a promotion, or pleasing my family. Just is. Breathing. Stepping outside of all the petty, little nuisances of listening to ignorant people at work or in the line at Dunn Bros. Coffee. No need for sex, or money, just is.
Would I go on another wheelchair ride if I had the means? I do, but I wouldn't. Something catches me now that didn't before. People like Sheen don't have that proverbial safety net and society bashes him for abborent behavior just because its public. If he blew those rocks where papparazzi lens couldn't reach he'd be an regular out-of-work actor bumming for a waiter job at TGI Friday's instead of the fountain of entertainment that he currently expells.
People who don't give a fuck fasinate those who choose to live by society's rules. I for one just spoke to a law enforcement officer yesterday for just the second time in the my life (the first time was when a small cub wandered through our neighborhood and sounded like a drunken burgular looking for my Millano cookies.
School is still important (finals week!), I still adore all of my friends, I still love my family and give my life to them, but for now my body is tired to the point of passing out at any given moment, tired of fighting physically and mentally. Maybe a good bender would allow for the rest needed to refuel, but as I've found since this page was started seven years ago, releasing words from my rum-soaked head onto these non-edited pages is better than any bottle of lithium or an army of self-help doctors could do.
2 comments:
I <3 Drizz. That is all.
Love The Wheel of Time series. Definitely some deep thinking behind the story lines.
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