Gloom

Definition:  melancholy, depression

Synonyms:  anguish, bitterness, blues, cheerlessness, dejection, despair, despondency, discouragement, downhearted,  grief, heavy hearted, malaise, misery, sorrow, unhappiness, weariness, woe.

This is me, today.  Yesterday, I was pretty cheerful.  Today, low. So low.  What is it?  The heavy cloud cover? The senseless murder of a Texas court official and his wife?  Loneliness?  Disillusionment?  Money?  Problems at home?  The stress of work?  Disconnect with friends? Chemical imbalance?

Yes.

The worst part, the very worst, is not caring if it gets better.  I do, I don’t want to feel this way.  But feeling this way is like standing on the edge of a knife.  One misstep and I don’t care, one misstep and it doesn’t matter.  Fuck stepping, you may be pushed.

Being angry because its a feeling, and you have to feel something.  Being angry because no one understands.  Being angry because you think no one cares.  So you go, and you start wanting to burn torch bridges.  A friend pisses you off, and you want to go ballistic on them.  But you don’t, not really.  So you reign in that anger, too.  And then it builds up inside.  It builds in your stomach and turns it into a cast iron stove, painful and burning and full of smoke and heat and ash.  It’s anguish and you want to spew the anger at everyone around you, everyone you can touch.

Or it’s fear.  Fear that no one cares or understands.  Fear that you won’t feel better later.  Fear that nothing will change, won’t get better.  Fear that the best is not yet to come.  Fear that you aren’t safe, not ever.  Not in your home, not in public, not in your own bed…not even in your head can you feel safe.  Fear and anger can feel like the same thing, they are like twins actors in a sitcom, playing the part of the precocious child.  You don’t know when they are switched out, who can tell the difference anyhow.  Use the one that’s easiest to contend with for this scene or that.

Sometimes it feels like hope is dead, and that’s when you realize how that’s basically what keeps you going.  So do you try to fool yourself into thinking it’s not, that its tangible and alive and breathing?  Or do you look for another thing to keep you going?