So Be It

You can barely keep your eyes open.

You can barely breathe. Your heart is about to burst. Pounding like hell. To the beat of a bad rave track.

What keeps you alive is the smell of the neighbour’s garbage. He left it by the door, that stupid schmuck. Again, eyes hardly open. Headaches. Burn out. Your feet heavy. So heavy you want to mutilate yourself. Your body parts are nothing but a pain in your soul’s ass.

Mornings are the worst, waking up to a new day that has more suffering to offer. “Will I make it today?” you ask yourself. “Will I be strong enough to make it through the day? Oh... if only it was nighttime again...” you say. Driving and thinking. Thinking and spitting. So many sour thoughts. You need to get them out of your system. Small little demons inside of you, forking your guts every two seconds. Your saliva is all made of crust. A crust of fear and dirt. Every single day is a new form of punishment. They say “self-punishment.” I say nonsense. I didn’t want this to happen to me. Or did I?

Images of a world that lives by me, without me. A world I see through the eyes of an ill person. Everybody says I am fine, but I am not. I can't move, my lips are frozen, I feel I am losing any sense of connection to the human condition. Utterly detached.

Energy none. Motivation none. Most of all, none. A tremendous “none” slowly burning my brain cells. I feel horrible. Every single day. Like it would be my last. And in a way, it is. I walk up the stairs to the office. I breathe heavily. I feel dizzy. For the tenth time during the day. Disoriented. I stop for a second to find my direction. I do that every time. I blink again. Again and again. I frown. This migraine is turning into a stroke. “Oh no... you know what this is,” I tell myself. “You don’t have time for another panic attack, you have work to do,” I tell myself. Besides, those attacks are no longer attacks. They are routine. They are, to me, what sneezing is to most people.

Thank god it's evening. Time to drink my feelings out. Time to let that bloody mother suck me down to its drunken rivers. Yeah ok, I tried the gym. Yeah ok, I tried dancing and all kinds of physical decompression. I still do it. Works for a couple of hours. All the rest, I still have to deal with strokes. And heart attacks and a bad gut that whines 12 hours a day. And hurts. All the shit I have to put up with. And having people tell you otherwise on top of that. Oh what do they know? Whatever, wine will keep me alert for a few hours. I even feel slightly joyful for a while. And the pain goes away.

No one. No one understands that I'm not well. No one realizes how the only salvation I see is darkness. I don’t know how I got there, but I did. I don’t want to be touched. I don’t want to sit next to anyone. Ever. Any day. Never. I don’t want to be in rooms with closed doors. It's suffocating. What if something happens to my body and I embarrass myself in front of all those people? No, I can't and I won't do this. A repetitive nightmare.

All I had was writing. About the world and how I imagined it. About other people’s success stories and how I pictured them. My whole life was a written portrayal of the untouchable. I was literally a ghost writer. Only with a name. Known to many. Respected by some, paradoxically. If only they knew what a troubled individual I was. In the darkest, sickest of hours I would write my guts out. Such a relief... Ever since I was a kid. It was who I am, or better, who I gradually discovered. Pain, wine, writing, and anxiety. The most melodic quartet leading to my death. As death was all I could see.

'Til one day, I pushed myself so hard. Out of the covers and out the door. Deep down, I knew it was pointless. However, I wished for a change. So badly. My hands were shaking as always. Saving my life was the hardest thing I had to do. You know, after a while you feel defeat is your best friend. Wants what’s good for you. And you wish not to betray him. Or her. Becomes you. You even write stories about how good it can be, how it awakens you before the eyes of a blind nation. It's somehow artsier. Isn’t it?

I am well now. I can finally enjoy the sun and the snow. I can wake up again. I can get on planes again. I can get stuck in an elevator and be fine with it. I can be touched again. I can taste. I can see. I can walk up the stairs. I can smile and hope and cherish moments and all that silly stuff we are supposed to do. Regardless, they are a bunch of business artifacts or not. My depression was probably more real. Authentic to a point I could feel the bullet of a troop against a harmless child on the other end of the planet.

But what I can’t do is write. I wonder if a part of me died with my depression. I wonder if a part of me has “cravings” for drunken rivers. I wonder if my recovered self is good enough to tell this story. Poorly written but true. Maybe sadness is more inspiring. Hell yeah. It is. Maybe my glorious writing days are gone.

But for some reason, if the smell of fresh gardenias gets me aroused like never before, I say “so be it.” Words will eventually follow.