You know, I don’t really consider myself a bitter guy. I like fun things, like ice cream and movies and friends, and I don’t really wear a lot of dark colors – in fact, I wear a fair amount of colors, and some patterns too, as was the trend when I was growing up. But, you know, everybody with any sort of depression gets corralled into this big image of a lonely, tired 50-something with graying hair and little eye-contact sitting in a dark room wearing plain clothing and eating something stupid like a casserole or a tuna fish sandwich. And I’m not any… most… of those things! It’s just… I don’t always feel up to everything once in a while. That’s all. You know, sometimes more than the average depressed person, and sometimes more. B-b-but… that doesn’t mean I’m completely ghostly and barren of joy – I don’t like rain and I don’t get pleasure from watching the downfall of society or some crazy psychopathic propaganda like that.
However, even after clearing all of that up, I don’t like a lot of things. What really sucks for me are holidays. God, any type of holiday. I’m like Charlie Brown, for Christ’s sake. I just can’t find a single, goddamned holiday that doesn’t have some kind of lousy, somber undertone to it. Take birthdays, for example (in fact, that’s an easy example) – you’ve got people coming through the windows to give you all of this attention out of nowhere, and just to make them feel better about themselves, and the day isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be because it’s never a perfect day, and through the entire thing, a voice in the back of your head is reminding you that you’re older now and should be better in some way and begins to write a laundry list of all the things you regret doing and not doing and what you haven’t even done in the first place. I mean, who wants to celebrate that? A day filled with the promise of fun, but it never turns out that way. And, you know, it’s this constant… reminder of how your entire life has paled and your rose-colored glasses are shattered right into your eyes.
And take Christmas – every Christmas, especially as you get older, you never really get anything good or even useful because you’re older and you have more things and the only thing you really want is a new car. And then you see your family and are reminded about how incredibly annoying your little cousin Lucy is and how Aunt Bertha and Uncle Mark really screwed up with her, and then you also remember that Lucy’s almost 13 and you remember how much better you were when you were almost 13, and you feel a little closer to death and once again, you remember how old you are. And then, of course, there are the straight-up bad holidays; the holidays that nobody actually thinks of as holidays but instead, they’re just a free sick day. Like President’s Day: a day essentially celebrating every major leader that United States has ever had. Nobody gives a crap! Nobody actually celebrates! The best celebration you’re going to get on the day commemorating these terrific, noble leaders is a 15% off coupon for Sear’s annual PRESIDENT DAY SALES EVENT, and Sears doesn’t care either; they just want your money for a stupid leaf blower.
Maybe this wasn’t the best way to put my depression in perspective.