I am, I am, I am

Last week, as I was heading home for Easter, I saw a little boy in the bus station testing his limits. He would walk away from his parents, or sometimes run as far as he could either before he got too scared or his parents called him back. He even walked backwards at one point, maybe to see the look on his parent’s faces as he got farther and farther away. Or maybe he enjoyed the thrill of seeing the distance between them. But he would always come running back to them each time.

When I first started dealing with my depression and had my first meeting with a psychiatrist I shared that the only book I could seem to read lately was "The Bell Jar." This led her to ask me if I have ever had thoughts of ending my life, naturally. But I wasn't looking for tips on the best way to kill myself, I just related to Esther Greenwood and her feelings of being sad and stuck. I knew what it was like to feel like I was "stewing in my own sour air." I was miserable and I found comfort in Esther's shared pain.

But I never wanted to die. I just wanted to escape. I was ready to take any bus, train or plane out of the city and go…anywhere. I didn’t care. I just wanted out of the life I was leading but not out of life as a whole. I never felt hopeless. I always knew that I would get better because I was taking actions to prevent this darkness from destroying me. And really, I think that I wanted to escape more than I was depressed.

I can remember the exact moment I decided to make my escape.

It was in the sky. That rainbow colored sky on my trip back to Boston from New Orleans. I was supposed to be writing a paper on the plane but I just couldn’t do it and as I looked out the window and tried to take so many mental pictures of that sky I made up my mind that I would stop doing everything that I was currently doing. None of it was working. I had to leave it all behind.

It was the fact that I felt like I couldn’t escape before that made me depressed. I felt stuck in my life. I was stuck at work, at school and at my internship. But it was on that plane ride that I realized that everyday I was making a choice to be unhappy. So I decided to choose to be happy instead.

And then the desire to be happy outweighed the desire to escape which all but eradicated the depression I was experiencing. I don’t doubt that I was depressed during that time, and I am aware that it could come back but I feel stronger now. I am making decisions that will hopefully prevent that horrible, sinking feeling from ever coming back.

Because I don’t want to settle. I don’t want to compromise, or just put up with something. I want to be passionate about my life. I want to be living it in exactly the manner that I desire. I want to be happy forever and not let anything, or anyone get in my way of living a fulfilling life. And if I get the desire to walk away- I will.