madeleine

Every so often I experience what Holly Golightly described as the "mean reds" and what caused Edgar Allan Poe "a heavy dread." For me, it's a dread of everything that might or might not be, and a dark haze I seem to wander in for weeks at a time. I forget to eat, I start smoking stray cigarettes, and I find it difficult to accomplish anything at all. When I'm not forcing myself to get the necessary things done, I'm lying on the sofa paging through books or listlessly cruising the Internet. Putting on a smile and a genial exterior for the benefit of others takes every ounce of energy I have. I feel like an unoriginal fake, existing by rote. I am exhausted in every bone, and I rarely have enough life in me to even write.

I've been dealing with this depression for several years, and it always eases. But I know it will return, and I tell myself I'll be better prepared next time- and I never am. I want to pull apart my body and find the center of this ache, I want to stop feeling so imprisoned in this sack of skin, I want to get rid of this throbbing hurt for good but I'm never able to.

After a few weeks, the pain begans to dissapear like an old scab, and I only feel a dead numbness. I am in that phase now and I'm looking forward to eventually feeling bright and positive again, but I hate being so dead. I almost prefer that inexplicable pain, because then I know I'm at least alive.

For whatever reason I deal with this - I'd like to think it's an artist's curse but far more likely I'm just one more screwed-up little girl - I'm determined not to let it conquer me. I've been told I'll probably experience these bouts of darkness and unease all my life. If that's the case, I'll at least try to remember how little any of it really matters. There are millions of people in the world whose daily life is merely a struggle to survive. My own feelings are of so little consequence in comparison. I've been reading news stories about Israeli bombings in Lebanon and deplorable refugee camp conditions in Darfur. Sometimes hearing of these things only draws the darkness closer, but it also increases my determination to do something - however small - to make the world a better place. So I pull myself up, and try again.





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