Is there anything more jarring?

You spend the whole day trying to stay high-functioning, and mostly you manage it. Irritable, sure — that’s the tell — but you get through. Someone says have a good rest of your day. You say it back, because you always say it back. The call drops, and you no longer have to be on.  And then your internal detection system catches up and whispers low: something’s wrong. You can feel it before you can say it.

Oh.

Right.

Depression.

It is the rest of the day now and I might not be having a good one.

Normally after work I go to the kitchen and make dinner and feed the cats and dogs, watch something while eating, and take a long walk.

I only got as far as feeding the cats and dogs. I wanted the comfort I normally have when I am around them, but it wouldn’t come.

Back in the kitchen, I switched on the stove to reheat something. It wasn’t working and that annoyed me. I moved to the induction cooker, but the one pan I had that works on it has been used and I could not be bothered to wash it.

So I walked out of the kitchen and went back to my room.

I’m supposed to go out and pick up the laundry as well.

Looks like that is going to have to wait.

I’m tired and just can’t with it.

Not sure what kind of tired. I don’t know if tired is even the word. I just know that washing a pan felt like too much and then making dinner became too much and then leaving the house became too much. And now I am back in the room I just spent all day in.

Why is it that when you are depressed, the things you have already agreed with yourself as things that don’t actually make you sad and lonely, suddenly turn on you and make you sad and lonely anyway?

I’ve been a remote worker for more than three years now. Most days, I work from home, and as a homebody I’ve always told myself the lifestyle fits me.

I like not having to deal with the grueling commute everyday, or having to rely on being physically with people to be productive. I can live with the tradeoffs.

But cabin fever hits. A quiet life becomes too quiet. The routine becomes so monotonous. I start longing for what was and what could be different.

Contrary to the introversion I’ve tried to convince myself I had, I actually like people. Especially when they’re my kind of people. But after 3+ years of mostly people-ing via screens, I can attest to how hard it is to have people like this.

I have told myself that this life is better.

That this pace is better.

I made more money than I ever did in the city.

All of these things are true.

At the moment, however, my brain will only let me see the tradeoff: how lonely it can be.

Over the weekend, I went out to the city to get my car serviced at the dealership where I used to work. One of those adult errands you’ve put off until you couldn’t anymore.

I worked there for quite a bit and genuinely loved it. That place was a refuge after getting out of the first job that had burned me the fuck out.

There was corporate politics, sure, because no workplace can simply let people do their jobs in peace. I liked the people and I liked who I was around them. But I was stagnating and staying was not a sustainable option.

I saw and chatted up people I haven’t seen or talked to in a while, all of whom surprised me every time they still remember me despite us not keeping in touch.

I ran into the certain someone I used to have a crush on.

It was one of those workplace crushes that aren’t supposed to be anything more: you just like someone’s energy, or the way they regard you, or the version of yourself that appears when they are around.

We started talking and bantering as though no time had passed.

I envied the people who got to stay, and thought about the community and friendship that built over the years that no longer included me.

For a little while, I got to be back inside a life where conversation happened without scheduling it, where people knew me outside a screen, where I could feel my personality bouncing off someone else’s in real time.

Then I went home.

Maybe the sudden exposure to all that social energy gave me a high and this is just the comedown.

Maybe I am just yearning for past things and past lives.

Maybe admitting how much I miss some things makes my life now look lonelier than it usually does.

I miss when social interaction was not something I had to arrange or log into.

I miss talking to people without a meeting link.

I miss banter.

I miss being around people who knew me in motion, not just as a square on a screen or a name under a ticket.

I miss my twenties, maybe.

Or I miss that place.

Or I miss that person.

Or I miss who I was around all of it.

I don’t know which one it is.

I don’t know if I actually want any of it back.

I just know that tonight the stove was not working and the pan was dirty and I have not made dinner yet and I did not pick up the laundry and I came back to my room, lay down, had some thoughts, and felt some feelings.

Anchoring me back, this time with some relief:

Oh.

Right.

Depression.

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