Another Visit with Depression

Depression was waiting for me when I came down this morning.

We didn't speak: he from a sense of patience, I from a sense of defeat. I made the coffee in the second-filled silence and stood there, blatantly ignoring him, as I prepared today's lunch and watched the coffee drip down. Finally, when the black liqueur was fully distilled into the pot, I poured myself a cup, my hands wrapped around the edges as if I could draw the warmth of the coffee into my soul. With a long sigh, I turned around and came back to the couch to sit down. Depression was still there, patiently waiting, thumbing through a book.

"The Art of War" he said, putting it back behind him on the shelf. "An excellent and well respected tome of knowledge. Probably wasted on you."

Great. That was how it was going to be, then.

"I mean" he continued "let's look at it really. What you do hardly requires a grand mastery of strategy. It requires the ability to take orders and do repetitive, detail oriented work. Lots of it."

"But I have goals-"

"Goals? Ah yes, your precious goals and objectives. We're what - five week into the year? Six? How are those going?" At my hanging head, he continued "I thought as much. Sure, it's great every Sunday night when you've had rest and a weekend to recharge. But trust me - consistently, by Tuesday you're mine. More and more, it's just Monday."

"But the hard part is over for this week" I tried to rally a counterattack. "Catch up. And if I try hard enough and do what I've been asked to do, this might be the year-"

"The year for what? A promotion? You remember they're scrapping the position above you. Nowhere for you to go there. Or maybe even another job? In this economy? Ha!"

Depression was going now, his eyes ablaze, his hands poised as a Baptist minister preaching hell, his voice a thundering cataract. "You're a serf. A servant. You do what you're told with the what you are given and be thankful for it. Any chance - any chance - you had of being anything but is long past. You cannot achieve. You cannot be great. Those chances are behind you - thanks mostly to the wretched decisions which you made. You are merely what you are - a servant. Get used to it - it will make the remainder of your life easier to bear. If you have no expectations, failure hurts less." He sat back down in triumph on the couch, head poised as if he could hear the cheers of a crowd I could not see.

I sat there staring into my coffee cup, his words penetrating to the core of where I had said such things to myself. I considered the rest of the week, a panorama of demands by others in which I was generally expected to solve their problems but knowing in my heart that any such resolutions would be accepted as my duty at best and ignored at least. I thought of the fact that I was not sleeping and so not having the energy to do what I wanted to do early in the morning and late in the evening, only having enough energy to stagger through one more day to do the things I had to do.

Depression saw - instinctively -my thought patterns even if he could not see my thoughts. His confidence only grew, his smile only got more smug. He finally rose from the couch, a self-satisfied look on his face. "My work is done here" he stated. "See you in the turnip fields."

He turned on his heels and disappeared into the early morning darkness, leaving only me with my coffee to listen to the winds howl. Whether they were outside the house or in my soul, I could not directly tell.