i would not love me if i was a worm

one

I’ve spent my abundant free time these past few weeks picking up the things I used to love, and putting them down when I found them lacking. Writing so I can check off my twice-monthly blog post, slogging through the video games in my eternal backlog, getting dinner with friends at familiar restaurants then going home as if nothing happened. I’m left with that expecting-another-staircase-step feeling, when you lower your foot at the top of the stairs to find nothing but air, wobbling as you set it down because you don’t really believe there’s solid ground that’s going to catch you.

Not that I’ve lost interest in these, and not that they feel aimless, and I still want to do all these, and I still in fact do them. The motivation for these is present, and my accomplishments here are felt, and my mood has been somewhat content, and I have not felt sad in the last while. My machine runs as it always does, and I finish each task on my to-do list, and I tell my friends I am okay because, that is what I believe myself to be.

So, why do I miss being sad?

In those days, when I was depressed, I felt like my writing had fuel. I wrote because I needed to. Back then, I had a fund of experiences to draw from and express myself with: anguish and exhaustion, malaise and isolation, disappointment and frustration, uncertainty, longing, grief, and, (of course!) sadness. My world might’ve been in grayscale, yes, but it had richer contrasts and sharper definitions than this world of bright blocks of solid colors. The grass is greener on this side, but it’s realer on the other side. These days, when I look at my archive, I see that all my favorite blog posts are from years ago. Nothing I’ve written has been better since I’ve been better. I have but one trick to writing well, and it is to be in pain.

I tried, and you know I tried, I tried not to let my identity be confined by my depression. Look at my writing: I wrote about video games and square dancing and the coding projects I worked on, and no one gave a shit. And I truly do feel better, in the scale of things, in the day-to-day, in the all-in-all, and I read my past writing and I remember how awful I felt, I remember how much I wanted to get rid of that sadness, I remember how hard I fought to get the lights in my life to line up, and yes, I wouldn’t want to go back. This is what I asked for. I’m better now. All it cost was greatness.

two

You scoop the bad feelings out of your life. You look at them so hard that you find them all illusory and skeletal. There was nothing to grind up, because there was nothing in the first place.

You got the worst news of your life in the past five years and you cried about it for a few hours. And then you were fine. That tendril of pain tried to grip you, but you know it for what it is, mere sensation, and you let it touch you and floats past, because you’ve learned to stop grasping.

You break down all the sharp things, hoping to find that the only things left behind are sunshine and substance. Instead, everything left is light and hollow.

Where are the bright and brilliant things you’ve loved? Writing, gaming, relating, puzzling, watching, listening, reading, talking? You’ve tried handling joy like you would a butterfly, that poor and fragile thing, that thing you cannot grasp so tight lest it burst. But the butterfly, too, is mere sensation. It touches you and flies past, and you know not to chase it.

You hoped to find happiness amidst the remnants of your depression. All you find is emptiness. There was nothing to find, because there was nothing in the first place.

three

Well, so what if my best stories are about my past? So what if my largest achievements are behind me? I’m not afraid of peaking. Change isn’t bad. I can let go of needing greatness. I don’t need to be famous, I don’t need to produce good work, I don’t need to perform. There are people who love me and that is enough.

And it’s true, I feel okay when I’m around my friends. The moments of closeness, of intimacy, of feeling that I am enough, this is a joy I find soulful and bright. I find meaning in the time I spend with them—but it is a meaningfulness that follows them as they leave. My friends lie in the blind spot of my object permanence, the warmth disappears as soon as I can’t see them, and I don’t want to be clingy.

I can’t stand being alone. That’s a problem.

Sure, I’ve found a happiness outside of the things I do and accomplish. Maybe I’ve accepted that life is good because I have people who care about me. Behold, for I’ve sloughed off this depression, only to have clung to others to fill the holes left behind. When they aren’t there I feel like a different person. And they can’t always be there.

Maybe that’s why I have a blog. Why I force myself to post every two weeks. Because I feel like I’m disappearing if I don’t tell people I’m here. Because aloneness is the little death, and I am scared of dying. Because when I’m writing about a video game I played or some square dance thing I noticed, I can at least pretend that someone’s listening.

four

I thought I could solve this problem by spending more time with others, which works about as well as solving a hangover by drinking more alcohol. Validation and acknowledgement only hit the snooze button. No, the problem is that I can only view myself as worthy of love in the context of my relationships, which has again made my self-worth conditioned on something extrinsic.

Because that is what all relationships are: conditional. Yes, my friends still care about me, even though I’m no longer as depressed. I’d have friends even if I stopped writing blog posts; I’d have friends even if I stopped initiating every dinner; I’d have friends even if I moved out of the country; I’d have friends even if I broke both my arms and legs.

But would I still have my friends if I became a completely different person? If I lost all my memories? If all my personality traits got replaced with their opposites? If I push people away because I get depressed again? If I, well, became a worm, whatever that means? I’ve changed, I’ll keep changing, I’m unrecognizable compared to me from a decade ago; people love me for who I am, people don’t love me because I am.

I don’t even love myself for who I am, let alone because I am.

And it’s not, it’s not, it’s not that I feel lonely or hurt about any of this. I thought about this the other day, cried about it for ten minutes, and then I stopped crying. Writing about all this feels neither painful nor relieving. All I feel is the mild and muted achievement of ticking off the checkbox for my regularly-scheduled blog post.