Dear Depression,
I notice that you are hanging around. More than usual. I try to avoid you. Or investigate you, staying in my mind rather than being in my body. But I think…no… I feel that I can’t think about you anymore. My brain grows weary of protecting my heart. the walls whither. my secure and tidy borders crumble. I surrender. I surrender. I will listen to what you have to say. I hear your reminders that you are afraid of pain. That you are afraid you’ll die alone, abandoned on the floor like him. Or fade like her. why do we fade? I’ll allow guilt and regret, wondering if you could’ve saved them. Why couldn’t we save them? I will bear witness to your worries that something terrible could happen to your family. the ominous visions that plague you at night. that you cannot protect your children from pain. that they will feel it again and again and again in their lives. I will hold your grief for children who suffer. humans in agony. there is so much misery in this world. I will sit still with your rage. the anger that our culture is totally fucked. I will be with you while you scream “why the fuck do we bring children into this fucked up world.” I will stay with you while you weep for the future. and the past. I will allow the hopelessness. the despair. I will not leave when you weep. you do not have to hide your shadow from me. Wail. Wail, Beloved. Beat the ground in bitterness. be wrath. explode at Death for stealing from you. and when you howl at this twisted culture of dissociation; at this culture that poisons our bodies and makes us commodities; the culture which robs us of humanity, makes us monsters, I will not turn away. I am not afraid to stay in your storm. to be in your darkness. I won’t turn on the light. I will stay. And hold you, Sweet Sadness. I will be with your cynicism. I will feel your hatred of the world without discouraging it. You are not broken. No one needs to fix you. I will not try to fix you. I surrender to you. For those that we have loved, deeply, intimately — that knew us in ways that no one else could, but have gone from our lives — cry for them. for those that we wish could know us more deeply but do not know how — lament. For what might have been…mourn. I will not leave you when you wallow. when you just can’t.
you.just. can’t.
you do not have to pull it together. you don’t have to be grateful for what you have. you don’t have to do or be anything, except tears. you can be tears. you can be sorrow. you can be dark.
I allow it all.
I see you.
I see you. You are afraid.
I see you. You feel unlovable.
I see you. You are tired.
You are heavy. You carry so much. Set it down.
Set it down here, in this grove of trees.
See how Earth holds you. See how she swallows your tears. See how she transforms them.
I see you.
I thank you.
You are loved.
You are not alone.
You are loved.
Until we meet again, Dear Depression.
always,
amye
Instead of asking ourselves, ‘How can I find security and happiness?’ we could ask ourselves, ‘Can I touch the center of my pain? Can I sit with suffering, both yours and mine, without trying to make it go away? Can I stay present to the ache of loss or disgrace or disappointment in all its many forms – and let it open me?’ -Pema Chödrön
Charly Slipp 