Sitting with my Thoughts

One year. It has been a year since the world was stood on its head and we accepted our new normal. When during this new normal did I begin to lose my mind? Was it the months of sitting around waiting for news that we can start living again? Was it when what should have been the happiest day of my life, the day I married my wife, came and went and all I felt was nothing. Too be honest that is all that I find inside me now, is nothing. Every day seems like it is on an endless loop wake, try to fake being alive, take some form of narcotic so I can sleep and repeat. I know it will not go on forever but everyday it gets harder and harder to keep moving forward. I was somebody before this, big man on campus. Now it feels like it was all fake and any control that was to be had is gone. Humbled I suppose one could call it, but in my mind it is just defeat. Trapped in the prison of my mind with no hope to get out. Nothing seems to stimulate me. This depression has taken control and my fear is I will never get this monkey off my back. Even writing this it feels as if things will never be the same, the new normal will never be my normal. Where does one now fit in this world? I hold out for hope and that the sun will shine again on our world. I have to hope that we can learn from this that we will better know how much we took for granted. Never will I take my family for granted knowing how much I miss being around them. The endless get together that at the time bordered on tedium are now the things to which I long for.

I once heard someone says “I wish there was a way to now you were in the good old days before they are gone” and if that aint the truth today I don’t know what is. Ok that is a line from the office, but it doesn’t mean that it does not hold any less true does it? This has not been easy for me to put down into words; I have always been a man of few words. As my Grandfather once said it is better to remain silent and have people thought you stupid then to open your mouth and remove all doubt. It has been a few weeks since writing that first paragraph, and I have to say the hopelessness is fading. Little by little but slowly going away. The world is still an ugly place; we have a lot of work on a lot of areas to fix. But as the vaccines role out, as more and more people are actually getting them, the world seems like it is returning back to what we once knew. Will it ever be the same as it once was? I hope not. I hope we learn from this, grow from this, and help shape the world more into what we want and need it to be. I hope we realize how much we need each other and how much we can use the human connection to move forward bettering ourselves. My hope is that these revelations don’t fade over time as they usually do, but grow and grow and grow until something beautiful emerges, a proverbial rose in the desert of mankind. Now I ask are these just the ramblings of a lonely depressed man? Or just words of caution to those who read them? Only you can make that decision for yourself dear reader. I will continue to sit and think and hope.