Pulses of Light

Holland Lake Magic | Crepuscular rays break out over Holland Lake in the Swan Valley.

Depression shrinks the world. Invisible walls of the mind are formidable barriers, it turns out, containing my physical being to a space the size of an oversized sofa. On an hourly cycle, I pause whatever trashy YouTube video I’m watching to pace the living room. For a moment, I feel a surge of life. But life, I’m quickly reminded, is exhausting and I am back on the couch within five minutes. Skip an ad and for a moment I feel perfectly numb. Sadness resides deep in my gut. I mean deeply. There are knots of emotional pain packed tightly into my stomach. All I want to do is cry, but I can’t. Another hour passes, numbness fades to implacable restlessness. I pace. I lie back down. I pace. I lie back down. This place has become a prison of my own creation. I’m well and truly stuck.

Isolation seems to be both a feature and a perpetuating characteristic of depression. I don’t return friends calls or texts, I do the bare minimum for my business and I am a pile of goo for my spouse. I’m utterly useless. And I feel bad about all of it, further fueling how little I think of myself in this state. Depression takes me back to being sixteen, when, under the spell of the hormonal chaos of puberty, it seemed appropriate. Now, at forty, it feels utterly pathetic.

But life goes on with or without me. Flashes of light begin to penetrate the invisible walls. The light cannot be forced. I’ve gotten damn good at hemming myself in within these walls, after all. They protect me from feeling. No one in or out. Instead it comes in unexpected pulses: a dramatic thunderstorm, purring cat and funny quip from a neighbor. For a moment, a glimpse of the living world is revealed. My isolation, it turns out, is not total. Is this what hope is?

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Today, my world is larger than my living room. I’ve ventured to a coffee shop to write this. Earlier today, I went to physical therapy and joined a gym. The light is returning. It was always there, it turns out. I just couldn’t see it through these wretched walls of my mind's making. Now, in the light, I continue the work of deconstructing the walls.