Proof

Relationships are like sharks / you have to keep moving or they die
Life is a great big shark. Depression is the emptiness. Absence. It is not the sharp high Mozart
note of great pain it is the white noise Don DeLillo wrote an entire novel on. The line across the screen. The blank screen after the line. The empty eyes of a brain injured human being. The French say orgasm is a small death. I say depression is the small death that duplicates until it is the great white. Until is is the master of it's ocean. Until there is no more thrashing blood amputated arms stories of survival and triumphant reentry into the point of attack until all that is left is the sea lapping it's wounds and the holes where you were which are now just holes.

I dare you to speak with a seriously depressed person and tell them to
take a boat ride.
it always cheers me up.
well.

I think the closest I've come to hating people is when a serious triumph of mental fuckedness is attended to with boat rides and focusing on the positive. No one understands the inanity of American cheeriness like a depressed American. For every movie we make with Jennifer Aniston and Colgate smiles and face lifted happy endings the French or German or Chinese are making a film where adults have sex with saggy aroused breasts and baggy eyes and weep as they fall asleep before awaking to the moment of comfort of arms that love. Nothing can make me suicidal faster than an American romantic comedy and nothing is more comforting than life reflected the way it is. Why do you think it is people often seem so much better right before they kill themselves. They have figured out what everyone wants and they can supply it for a short time. Boat rides bleached teeth and a complete denial of all the hard hard work and pain that life holds next to it's pretty little tits.

In conclusion I am depressed but please do not tell me to A take a boat ride or B bleach my teeth or C finally do something about the bags under my eyes.

I would like to instead be reminded of the heaviness of this world, it's soul beating slow and steady but covered in the marks of a long life lived. Covered in scars and wound. I would like to be reminded that life is not a pleasure cruise or a vacation or a series of endless highs and acquisition of sex, otherwise we would all be permanently stuck on the movie set of American Pie. I would like to be reminded that this is the best time of my life, man. Because it is. Because I grew up with a brilliant and abusive father and my mother did the best she could. Because my sister was so damaged I haven't talked to or seen her in 7 long years. Because my childhood was one long choppy sea punctuated with sunbursts and ships on far with happy people waving my way who never saw my signs for help. Because my relationship with Mr. Curry is the deepest intimacy I can imagine having with any one human being without bordering on the pathologically codependant, and it still does anyhow. Because I have three children and one on the way who are too much for black typed words to represent. Because I am not in constant physical pain. Because I can get help. Because I can ask for help. Because I have 6 years of therapy and some intensive life workouts behind me. Because I'm not dying, starving, hurting anyone or unable to stop the immense suffering of someone I love.

Charts Prove: my life is awesome and I'm just too fucked up to feel it.

Proof:

my lola: singing oh oh it's magic / never believe it's not sooooo

my employer: yes i can advance you money from your next paycheck to help cover your rent

my mom: i can pick up the kids today

my husband: if you don't like the honey on your breasts, would you like me to just hold you?

my son: well. sometimes we have something positive to say and sometimes we don't say anything at all. the child is 16. let's give him a pass.

my other son: straight up sweet carry the groceries because your rib is hurt doing pushups

my dogs: noses on my lap in concern

my blog: readers who give a shit and do so with soft toilet paper

myself, to myself: that's enough now honey. you've been sad. now pick it up and dance. all you fly motherfuckers just get on out there and dance. dance i said
image Laurie Rosenwal