क्या हुआ??

When I was in middle school, my life was almost defined by my battle with depression. Practically every waking hour was plagued by dark thoughts and the battle to keep those thoughts at bay. After several years, I started to emerge from the shadows and slowly learned how to adjust my thinking so I would be more positive and actually find happiness in life again. These days, I truly feel like the balance has shifted and I am mostly happy with despair as the exception, instead of the other way around.

This being said, sometimes it shocks me how my depression emerges again. Like a drop of oil in a lake, the smallest event can send me spiraling back down into what feels like an utterly inescapable sadness. Suddenly, it’s like I’m wearing sunglasses that show everything around me in a shade of negativity. I can’t corrale or compartmentalize my feelings. I might have a disagreement with someone and then suddenly I start attacking myself. Walking down the sidewalk it becomes apparent that I’m completely alone and no one even cares that I exist, and then when I have a piece of pizza for lunch every must be thinking “Oh look, another fat girl eating her fat food,” and then I start thinking about how I’m a failure and probably have no business being in grad school. The worst part, though, is when I realize how irrational I’m being and start beating myself up for not being able to stop. 

This is the point when it feels like absolutely nothing has changed. I’m still that 8th grader who can’t see the benefit or hope in life and whatever I have accomplished between then and now is moot because I still get these feelings. 

But what keeps me going, what keeps me from giving in to this darkness is the constant reminder that the clouds will pass as they always  do. Like the blind person who has to trust in the way that the sunset is described to him, I have to trust in that logical part of my brain when it tells me that, yes, you have been happy, yes, you do deserve to be exactly where you are, and yes, it will. be. okay. 

Sometimes, though, these dark spells can be so exhausting.  It’s as if my own brain is working against me at times…but…I have no other choice than to get through it.

So I will.

I’m in my apartment again, after my month long visit to Minnesota. I guess this is really the first time where going home really is more of a “visit.” I still have my own room and all, but when I return, I return to Texas. I’m here alone now, putting away the last of my things. 

I’m a little homesick tonight. It was nice being back and seeing my friends and family and of course it’s hard to leave them, especially with some of the things that are going on. Every time I go back, my nieces are going to be a little bigger, some people will still be around while others will have left. But then again, I left too. 

Anyway, even with all this, I am absolutely excited for this semester. I’ve always said that I would love to be paid to just take language courses. Well, check it out. Two out of my three courses are language courses. One in Hindi, one in Urdu. The other class I’m taking sounds really great, too. I am so thankful every day for where I am. Though many things are uncertain, and those things are always a source of worry, at least I am in a place I love, studying what I love. Even if life is falling apart around me, I can still throw myself into my studies and be happy as a clam. And sometimes it’s necessary…

Anyway, I need to scrounge around for something to eat tonight. I’ll be grocery shopping tomorrow, but for now I have popcorn and easy mac. Healthy!

Driving down this road

Watching the sunset rolling over me

I feel comfort

Knowing the same had rolled over you earlier in its journey

This, the one physical connection 

Could it also be our last?

I hold onto that border between darkness and light

like a lifeline, joining us.

Will our struggles win out in the end?

or will our words fall on deaf ears?

Maybe we will be together again

Together beneath our own glorious sunset