As I try to make sense of the depression, fear has become my companion. In the struggle to remain upright and moving it is there. A constant. Steady and dull in my chest. It is not a flighty running panic. It is far closer to a deep dread that has set up camp beneath my breast bone. Not a breath goes by it without the reminder. I know I am scared and this is just my way of controlling it as best I can. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I do not know if my judgement and coping will depart as they have at times. I cannot help but envision me at my darkest moments. I know what I have done. It remains there in my head. The shame never left. In this fearful state it is ever-present. I do not want to be blinded by this depression and lose sight of everyone around me. I don’t want to be miles away and disengaged from my life. Yet I don’t know where this is going. I know how it feels and how quickly it arrived. Least it felt that way. I think I just avoided seeing all the calling cards left on my doorstep. I looked away. Denial hid the truth. But it grew too deep to deny its existence. Here I sit trying to put words to the dull ache in my chest. I have worked so hard, but depression doesn’t care. It doesn’t change or pull any punches. It is here, just as it has always been. Terrifying in its ability to grow all encompassing and dark. I think about all the times I have been in this exact place. All the years. It just doesn’t let go and leave me alone. It does not matter how hard I try, nor how far I have come. It is meaningless. It arrives unwanted all the same. I do not know what I ever did to deserve this. I can not think of a worse punishment, for it truly is to be dead on your feet. To see passion and interest cease. To lose track of days, and even hours in the haze. So little even registers while holding still and fighting to get through. It becomes only about the fight. I could just lay down and give up. Sure a part of me wants nothing more. That does nothing for me in the long run. I could bury myself beneath my blankets and sleep through the days as I have in the past. That only seems to drag it out longer. There does not seem to be any right answer, only the wrong ones.

so I continue on in this unsettled place. I’ve learned enough not to let myself disconnect and disappear. I know that. But in the wake of its absence I can only feel pain I want none of. What is the answer? How do I find the grace and strength to bow my head and shoulder this burden with reacting to it. How do I find acceptance? I have no answers. but I will grow tired of holding off old patterns. I have changed yet I know the old familiar roads are still there. they don’t just vanish.

I know Virgil and Beatrice want me to continue on this new path. I am trying. I just feel woefully unprepared for the journey.