discontent

Where does discontent start? You are warm enough, but you shiver. You are fed, yet hunger gnaws you. You have been loved, but your yearning wanders in new fields. And to prod all these there’s time, the Bastard Time.

I am depressed.

Not "shoot myself" depressed or, "I haven't talked to him in a while, maybe I should call?" depressed. Just "normally occurs in the life-cycle of a person and will pass soon enough" depressed. Besides, the only thing more depressing than being depressed is having people pity your depression and then try to make up for being shitty friends by calling. Then, they're not interested in you or in trying to talk to you at all, but only in trying to feel like a less shitty friend. (just an observation, not a barb aimed at anyone)

There are a lot of reasons, some of which I understand, some of which I don't. But, for those of you who have read Sweet Thursday will recognize the above quote, or know what the "third voice" is.

I got through this often, actually, the downward spiral. It's when I get depressed about something trivial, then I become an annoying bum who's no fun to hang out with, then I'm a lonely bum because, being no fun to hang out with, I'm alone. It spirals downward until...somehow it stops. I don't know why, and I can't say when or how, but it does. Sometimes it's a great meal. Sometimes a bottle of wine, sometimes, just a good poop or a nice night's sleep or my mom calling randomly to laugh about something she saw on TV.

That being said, there are plenty of individual things I could point at recently, some literal (the fixed, chipped tooth that is now re-chipped and annoying me since now I know it's there) some figurative (the third voice). I feel like any one of them would be a simple annoyance, but because there are so many, they've become a wall of sorts, which I can't quite figure out how to get around, over, under or through. And so, instead, I just sit here, depressed, staring at it all.

Luckily, like most things, Steinbeck saw through it all. And so, there's always hope--

Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass.