As Winter turns to Autumn

People have little patience for negativity.

As long as you’re happy, you’ve got friends all around you.  But when you’re feeling down, everyone walks away because you’re “being negative”.  Isn’t that when you need people the most?  It’s easy to be around someone who is light-hearted and happy.  Everyone joins in on the fun stuff.  Smiling, laughing, having a good time.  Everyone’s your friend when you’re doing alright.

But when you’re having trouble, when you’re spiraling down into the darkness and you feel alone, they leave you to figure it out by yourself.  There are no voices of reason guiding you back.  Because you feel alone, everyone abandons you and it becomes true.  No one wants to be around when you’re dark.

And you see them having fun, laughing in the sun…  It drives you deeper into the darkness because you know that none of them are going to come for you.  They are having too much fun with the rest of the “happy souls” to even notice you slipped into the cave.  So you sit at the precipice and you listen as they ignore you.  You hear their laughter, laughter that you were part of only a short time ago…  The sound of that laughter hasn’t changed since you left.  And then you know that your voice was never really a part of the group.  You were mimicking them.  You were trying so hard to be “normal”.  You wanted to be part of the group, you just wanted to enjoy life for a moment.

But they ignore you.  They never even notice you left.  And their laughter drives you insane.  So you sink further into the darkness.  The darkness welcomes you, it makes you comfortable.  It never rejects you or turns from you.  But you are reluctant to give up on hope.  You turn your face to the shrinking pinprick of light at the mouth of the cave hoping to see one of them come for you.  Hoping someone will notice your absence and come looking for you.  If you mattered to them at all, they might miss you…

But no one ever comes.  And you knew they wouldn’t.  Why do you torture yourself with the hope that one day, someone will appear next to you and extend a hand, helping to pull you out of the cave?  They don’t care about you, they only care about what you can add to the light.  If you’re not feeding the light, they have no use for you.  When you’re gone, they move on and never even register the difference whether you’re there or not.  So you sink.  You allow the cold touch of the empty darkness to be a comfort.  It clings to you and you to it.  Symbiotic, it needs you as much as you need it.  And wasn’t that all you were looking for in the first place?  A place to belong?  A place to be needed?

But you are weak.  You succumb to the folly of dreams.  You close your eyes for a second and just as you do, you think you see movement, a shadow.  Is it someone coming for you?  Is someone missing you?  Your heart leaps at the possibility and you throw back the soft blanket of darkness and race to the mouth of the cave.  Your eyes are not accustomed to the light and you stumble your way towards the sun.  You so badly want to join in their fun, you yearn for their acceptance.  But you can’t ask.  You can’t make the first move.  It’s not that they ever hated you, you just don’t matter to them.  So if you ask to join in, they’ll gladly accept you…  But they’ll never ask you.  And you’ll never know if you belong or if you’re lip syncing the part again.  Once more you stand on the precipice and wait to see whether you will land back in the darkness or if you will be welcomed into the sun.

The thought of being so precariously imbalanced sickens you and you begin to think that you were foolish to ever entertain the notion of being worthy of another’s concern.  You know you are at your weakest and most fragile and it disgusts you to think of yourself as such a vile creature.  Knowing that you stand there, waiting for outside influences to determine your life.  Waiting for that outstretched hand, a smile, a warm thought… and knowing it will never come.

Ohhh how it enrages you to think you were tricked once again!  You begin to shrink back to the cave…  WAIT.  What was that?  Did someone just…  No.  No, they didn’t.  Well maybe you can wait for just another second…  And you pile on more disgust as you know that you are only fooling yourself.  Why would anyone want to be around someone like you?  You, who are always having trouble staying in the light.  You are a burden to those who are happy, you stand out in the crowd as the only one who is not smiling and this makes you an unwelcome guest.

You have always been different.  They claim that everyone feels this way but they never seem to have the difficulty you have felt your entire life.  They never seem to have the knife to their own throats, they have never heard the deafening “CLICK” of the unchambered round in their ears.  “Everyone get depressed from time to time” is the safety phrase they toss at you with blatant disregard for the obvious fact that you have been in darkness for years.  As if your dark and imprisoned life were a choice, as if you could flip a switch and turn on the happy…
And when instant happiness eludes you and their magical phrase is rendered useless they begin to toss stronger phrases at you.  Possibly hoping to jump start you, possibly intent to hurt you…  “Get over yourself“, “What’s so difficult about your life?“, “Stop feeling so sorry for yourself“, “You’re not the only one feeling blue.”  Their depression lasts a weekend, at worst, months.  They pat themselves on the back and treat their depressed friends like national heroes for overcoming such a horrible bout of depression…
Decades.  Trapped in the mouth of this cave, watching them have their fun, “enduring” their problems.  Their traumatic decisions including where to go on vacation this year and which new car to buy while you fight the battle within yourself trying to carve out time from an empty calendar.  Filled with names and dates, none of which give you any comfort.  Surrounded by those that will never understand you, the claustrophobic loneliness fills your days and cripples your nights.  Meaningless daily drills that have the outward appearance of importance but you know it is only a facade attempting to hide the fact that you are only counting the days until the calendar runs out and you no longer have to watch them mock your pain.  You have always been different.

You turn away from the light and march confidently back to the darkness you only just abandoned.  It doesn’t mind.  It welcomes you once again and begins to slither its oily tentacles around your body once more.  You enjoy the feeling of someone holding you, even if it is only your own demise.  Once again you turn and position yourself to keep your eye on the fading light.

One day, you’ll allow yourself to sink to the bottom.  To drink in the darkness.  That minuscule pin prick of light at the mouth of the cave winked out of existence forever, never to taunt you with its empty promises again.