A friend reminded me that I hadn’t posted here in a while. Fact is, I have nothing useful to offer.
Severe depression seems to be my new COVID-era normal. Art can’t touch it. Drugs rarely provide enough energy to do a load of laundry or make a run to the grocery store. Not often enough to consider myself “functional.”
In another time and place, I would be hospitalized. As it is, I try to keep my head down as I slog through the Suicidal Ideation mire. One foot in front of the other.
With no other options, I am shamelessly asking for help on FaceBook—from the friends and family who know me there. Help comes. Groceries and prepared meals from real live people near me; in cold boxes and online deliveries from those far away. I’ve asked that folks clean out their desks and attics for collage fodder—old pictures, papers, receipts, music sheets, letters—anything flat and weird that might kindle a spark of creative oomph. I’ve asked them to remind me who I am to them, if I mean anything at all, since I’ve lost perspective about all that.
I can’t wait for the cycle to shift anymore. I may get a boost now and then, but my little marble rolls back to this trough with no real mood change. Like everyone else in the world, I have to do things differently. I have to ask for help, not once, but repeatedly. I have to get over the shame of that, get over my upbringing, get over myself.
Just one more fucking Adventure.