l Am Not Living, Just Surviving Each Day

DEP Summer Contest

Twice today I felt like my world is ending.

It is a feeling that comes and goes.

I have to take several deep breaths and calm myself that it is just my anxiety speaking. Not reality.

How I wish it were that simple.

Sometimes I wonder, what is the point of this life? I know, it is against my beliefs to even go down that path but at times, especially at 3 am in the morning, with only crickets for company, I find my mind wandering down dangerous paths.

We are born and thus it begins. Always one challenge after another. We persevere, and some eventually get to enjoy the fruits of their labor, while for others it is just doggedly chugging along…to where?

What is the destination?

Money? Fame? Happiness? Marriage? Survival?

I should be the one to complain. Food on the table and a roof over my head and a partner who loves me.

And yet, here I am.

Whining, wallowing in self-pity…feeling like a total failure.

Depression does that to you. Top that off with an existential crisis and you have yourself a toxic cocktail going on.

In the morning, I wake up with a knot the size of a boulder in my chest. I spend a good chunk of my morning undoing the knots and trying to convince myself that it is okay. That I will be okay.

It doesn’t work.

When I think of the years ahead of me, like a switchback — all hidden curves and sharp bends — I just don’t have it in me today to do this anymore.

For what?

What is my purpose here?

Don’t give me another New-Age approach to ameliorate what I’m feeling.

I’ve tried it all. Nothing really helps. Infinitesimal progress at best.

The pain is still the same. The void is more gaping and hungrier than it has ever been.

Give back, the experts say. Volunteer your time to change your perspective. I have been doing it diligently for the past 9 years and it has come to a point where I am adding to what I already have on my plate than alleviating it. Immerse yourself in nature they say, I do that without fail but midway through my walks I break down and cry. Fake it till you make it, they say. I fake it alright, I have no choice because I have family expectations and obligations to fulfill. But that doesn’t mean I am not crying inside….

The only time I feel at peace is when I am dead to the world.

Blessed relief.

It may sound morbid to some, not the right choice for a topic for a season of rejoicing and lush landscapes as summers tend to be in this part of the Northern Hemisphere.

My point is to draw attention to the fact that depression does not recognize seasons. When this terrible illness inserts its claws into you, it doesn’t matter if it is sunny outside or the birds are merrily warbling away from the crack of dawn.

For the one who is depressed, the world is perpetually dark. People tend to give whom they can’t understand a wide berth maybe because they are afraid whatever they have is catching or could be because the sadness is palpable like a wet blanket.

Or maybe it’s out of pity seeing you trying to function while zonked out on meds as if you don’t have it in you to pull yourself together.

I grew up in Fouriesburg, a tiny speck on the map of South Africa if at all it is mentioned. It was a tumultuous time during the ending of apartheid and nonwhites could finally purchase houses in white areas even though we were not welcome in their churches.

But those were adult matters which we were too young to comprehend or frankly, bother about, especially in the summer when school let out and we got to play.

Our favorite game was seven stones. The game involved two teams, and the objective of one team was to prevent the other from stacking up the stones and winning the game.

By the time they reached our part of the street, the road builders had apparently run out of asphalt so it made the perfect spot for kids to congregate in the evenings and play seven stones.

I used to feel most alive then. The excitement of the game, the rush of color to freckle-splattered cheeks from the physical exertions, and the team spirit that made each game so personal was definitely a big part of it.

But maybe it also had to do with being free — of worries, health challenges, marital discord, and inevitable heartache.

Have you seen an African sunset, when the sun descends behind the mountains in a blaze of glory? It is not only a magnificent sight to behold but also heralded the end of playtime. Even then, the laughter of kids could be heard well into dusk until finally, one by one they would pick up their bikes and slowly make their way home for dinner.

It was on the walk home that plans were made on how to redeem a defeat in the next day’s game. Failure was not an option or was it that we were so optimistic in oir innocence that we would not let failure be an option?

I miss that little girl. She lived every moment to the fullest, always in a caper or two but never shying from some new adventure on account of fear — fear of failure, fear of uncertainty, fear of judgment.

Those long-gone African summers of that carefree girl in pigtails are but treasured memories in an album now. Try as I may, I cannot conjure up those feelings of happiness and wild abandon anymore, sadly.

Nevertheless, I am immensely grateful for those happy memories because they remind me that I once experienced magic and it made for the best time of my life.