When you’re out in the streets and this guy is having one hell of a conversation with nobody other than himself, that’s like schizophrenia, right? When someone else is screaming at the top of her lungs in rage, that’s schizophrenia, too, you think. A simple greeting snaps them out of it, you’ve noticed. You’ve tried it. It works.
What about when some twenty-something waltzes into the grocery store and leaves with a ton of stolen groceries, what’s that called? You’ve heard it said that person is “in crisis.” Mentally ill. It’s like a diagnosis and everything.
What about if it’s the holiday season? You’re reminded harshly of, say, your mother’s burial that took place on the eve of His birthday and, too, you’re besieged by the stress of having to reinvent yourself at 55 years of age after having lost your cushy job of 15 years. You talk to yourself more, consequently. You might even have tried to scan a pound of deli meat at the self-help register, and when it didn’t beep, you might have accidentally filched it instead of trying to scan it again. You’re in crisis.
You’re not alone. A while back you met a guy on here named O. He was your next door neighbor for a minute. From Nigeria. Said he was kind of a big shot who worked at Microsoft but that, too, he was on some kind of sabbatical. He had a son who you seldom saw. You were gonna get dressed up and be swanky buddies. Most of your homies are dive bar specialists. They wouldn’t know a linen suit from a tablecloth. O. was gonna be your linen suit buddy. You were gonna “slay it” out there. Cigars. The whole nine.
That’s until he fell. Hard. Strange cars parked outside. Hawking old sandals and other personal items on his front stoop. You saw the decay firsthand. You saw O. reduced to bare metal or rubble, pick your metaphor.
Then a little more recently a friend of a friend blew his head off in his backyard. You didn’t know him personally. He was a cop with a bright future. His wife, however, wanted a divorce and it put him over the edge. O’s affliction seemed to have sprung from divorce, too. Women, you swear.
What’s it about these dudes that makes ’em go to these lengths, meanwhile you’re just stealing a pound of turkey breast? Why are you not blowing your head off in the backyard so that your neighbor or, worse, your son can come home and see the mess and wonder what he does first. Get a blanket? Call the cops? Bawl? You want your kid to bawl when his old man goes tits up, but not in a way that involves your brains scattered on the lawn and the siding, both. It’s an awful pressure to put on a young man.
Maybe you’re not depressed if that’s what they were. Maybe you’re just down or was as said before, in the pits. Singing the blues. Your chemicals are all where they need to be, keeping that brain of yours helmeted.
Ya know something, fuck all that. Don’t shortchange yourself. Diminish your suffering. You are depressed. You’re as depressed as you deserve to be given the state of your union at the moment.
But guess what and another thing: it’s okay. Being depressed is okay. Don’t be embarrassed about it. You’re vulnerable and guess what–that’s attractive. It’s manly.
Still, you can’t get yourself to that level of acceptance and awareness. You just can’t shake it, that depression seems to be a luxury you can’t afford. You give it a try, anyway. You pray in the grocery lot on the way to your car. You’re doing that more these days, leaning harder on your faith than you have in recent memory.
Jesus, there she is!
Shit, there she goes.
She clipped you talking to yourself. Wasn’t she supposed to be mildly turned seeing your vulnerable side? She could have asked you who you’re talking to, and like a real man, you would have told her. I know you would’ve.
-tmc
Things Men Carry 