More like me

It creeps up on you. You don't even know it first. It's like a slow shadow that covers you before you know it. It's a dark cloud that you didn't see until it's on top of you and it starts to rain.

And when you look back, you realise you should have known.

It's been dark. As it is supposed to be in the winter. But damn, it's been dark.

You've been sleeping a lot more. Few naps here and there. Waking up around noon. And you're still so damn tired. Maybe because of all the nightmares you've been having.

You stay home. It's so comfortable there. Easy access to naps. And it feels like such an effort to put on decent clothes. And leave. And meet people. Damn, you've totally forgot how much you hate people. And crowds. But mostly people.

Stay home and listen to music. Dark music. It gives you shelter. You're not alone in this world. But damn, sometimes you really want to be.

When's the last time you ate? No, that chocolate doesn't count. Nor that popcorn. Wait, when's the last time you actually cooked? Have you been eating what ever you can emptying the closets just so you don't have to go to the damned store?

Then one day you take a shower and  just randomly start to cry. Damn.

And this is when all the alarm bells went off in my head. I had had suspicions before. It's the sleeping that gives me away. When I feel like I'd rather hang myself than wake up for work, that's a sign.

I think the reason why I didn't notice earlier was because I apparently have the yearly Spring-homemaking-boom on too. I've never been depressed in the spring. Spring is the time when the days get longer, the winter starts to fade away. And because of all the increased light you can see how dirty your apartment is and you get the urge to clean it and probably rearrange it too. You feel that you need to change something in your life.

I don't know yet if this is a real episode. It might be because it's been coming for... years now. Or it might be a case of the (November) blues and it'll pass before I notice. What ever it is, it is something new. I never wanted to stay home and clean at the same time before. Don't tell my mom, she'd probably have a stroke... about the cleaning, not the blues.

So it's spring and I need a change in my life. Moving from this apartment before I graduate would be foolish. I still have my thesis to write so I can't really get a full-time job either. And where I am now is such a good place to be. It's flexible, the people are nice, there's no pressure (which might be part of the problem)... I would be stupid to change it now.

I've been thinking about the things I can change. I could go on a diet and lose weight. It would give me something to do and I would feel better after gaining so much weight in the past year. But when you don't really want to leave the house, it's really hard.

I could try to quit smoking. I heard about these pills that have helped people. But they might be for the people who have been smoking for fifteen years and two packs a day. Oh, and they might cause mental issues. So maybe not.

Also I don't know if it's a good idea to change things that can affect my mood negatively.

So I've been thinking of learning something practical might help. I've been thinking about driving and how a licence would be useful. I've been dabbling with this idea more and more every year because it would make travelling easier. No more one driver when going on a road trip. Easier to participate in fieldwork, and if I'd start now I would probably have one before next summer's fieldwork. So only positive things, and I would have time for it too. But it costs a lot of money and I'm not sure if I have that.

Year after year I dream more about a bigger house where I could have a studio of my own. Every time I would have the blues I could just lock myself in it and create the only thing good coming out of this: art. Sometimes I feel like someone chained my hands behind my back in this apartment and the only thing I can do is to smash my head against the keyboard.

I know I haven't published much here lately, but that doesn't mean I haven't been writing. I have two unfinished posts hanging there waiting to be finished.

Which they'll never be, but that's life. It will never be finished.

Sometimes I wonder if people can see the blues in me. A friend of mine noticed that I had been talking about sleeping a lot more lately and he asked if everything was okay. That was my first clue.

But I don't think it's something you can see. It's not something that is written on your face. It's something you can hear. It's hidden in the sentences, in the exhausted yes's when something needs to be done, it's in the silences and the absences. It's so much easier to notice something that is right in front of you than something that hides and seeks cover from curious stares.

Maybe that's a good thing. Fake it until you make it, they say. Fake it until you start to believe in it yourself. And what ever you do stop eating candy, drinking alcohol or what ever shit it is that you stuff your face with. That will just make you to be what you eat. Or at least feel like it.

The song of the day is In Flames - Alias.