alright. um. it’s like … the only way i can think to explain it is, have you seen the movie awakenings? robin williams, robert de niro. de niro’s in a coma for a long time, robin williams is a doctor, right, he gives him some kind of new drug that wakes him up, and he’s so happy to be up and awake and alive … and then the drug wears off and he lapses back into a coma. that’s … basically what it feels like. months and months of this comatose state and then around autumn i start to wake up and feel like a human again.
so i get, you know, you not being pleased that i haven’t talked to you in months, but i honestly, like, i can’t even remember from may ’til september. i mean it. i lived it, i went to work, i went home, i watch tv, but i don’t remember any of it. i remember the tv. i watched a lot of good tv. i spent more time there than in my own body, it feels like. but most of my days i’m in this catatonic state, and i can’t even remember what i ate for lunch a few hours after i ate it, or my mind is wrapped around some little thing, some negative words that repeat in the front of my mind like a broken record. i just sit in my room–i, i used to play video games too, but they were too active, they required too much of me–so i sit in my room, sometimes i’m so tired i just lay my head back in my chair and fall asleep right there. sleep is good, but i’m not like those people who feel like sleeping all day. sleep just helps me feel a little bit better. for me it’s the routine, the routine of the day that keeps me going. it’s the only thing. that and my cat.
i … uh, one time i thought about it. about “it”, you know, killing myself. used to be i’d think about who would go to my funeral if i died, and that was it. i think everyone thinks that at some point in their lives, right? it’s like the farthest concrete abstract concept of death, of your own death, whatever … but there was a shift a year or two ago, from that abstract concept, of what it would be like if i died, to … to that i could do it. that i could take my own life. you know what i mean? that that was a possibility in my life. before it wasn’t, and now … yeah. and what stopped me in this existential debate was my fucking cat. i’ve spent my whole life not wanting to burden others, and the last thing i want is to force someone to take care of my cat after i off myself, so i thought … i thought about … drowning her, you know, i, just, um, running a sink full of water and sticking her head … and i can’t. i can’t do it.
that was … a while ago. i don’t really think like that anymore. i think a lot about ways to dull this constant existential anguish sucking my life away, or why i can sleep eight hours a night and still not have the energy to hang out with my friends, or why people acting on screen is more important to me than calling my own girlfriend. i think about that a lot. but i don’t think about killing myself anymore. not like then. so … sorry to dump that on you. i promise i’m here, i’m not going anywhere. my life used to be clarity with bouts of depression, and now it’s cloudy with bits of clarity. i don’t know how that happened. i wish i did.
