Depression. You see it in the media all the time. We’ve all come to learn the signs. Darkened rooms, the cold light of the television on staring faces, eating pints of ice cream, occasionally singing with woeful songs, and perhaps crying along with the lyrics. Mattresses on the floor in corners, the sun shining in. Too long without food, and perhaps crying over the cathartic drag of serrated blade through skin. We see these things in movies, or on television, and we know— oh, they’re depressed.
For me, it is different. I didn't even recognize it at first. It’s a thousand breaths condensed into one that gathers any awareness— or rather, two incomplete halves. Inhale, as I settle into the chair by the window, book in front of me, cat purring under one limp hand. Sunlight slides slowly across the sunny yellow of the wall, dragging the shadows of leaves in a slow, natural compass from gauzy golden curtain to spring green crown moulding.
