Deep Sea Diving

Today has been one of those ‘blue’ days. You know the ones where you can’t shake that down-in-the-dumps feeling from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed? (or in my case, the time you should go to bed, but can’t because of insomnia). Today wasn’t just a normal blue day. It was an especially dark blue day. Like a bottom of the ocean kind of blue - almost black because the sun’s rays don’t penetrate this far down.

This morning, when I realized it was one of those days, I valiantly tried to cheer up. Really, I did. But everything seemed to conspire against me so that I kept sinking lower and lower toward the ocean floor. First of all, the weather. It was extremely foggy and one of those days where the dampness in the air gets so deep inside of you that you feel as though you’ll never be warm or dry again. And then there were all of those really annoying things that normally aren’t a big deal, but on days like these can send you right over the edge: dropping things, spilling things, stubbing toes, etc., so that by late evening, I was a muttering wreck, angrily mopping at the floor with paper towels. And everyone in my household seemed to be out to get me too. Everyone was really needy today, on the day that I had nothing to give.

So finally, after everyone had gone to bed, in desperate need of escape, I threw on my sweatshirt, grabbed my keys and set out for a walk. A walk, I decided, was just what I needed. It would be a good way to vent, and I would finally be alone to wallow whole-heartedly in my self pity. As soon as I walked out the front door, that horrid wall of soaking wet fog hit me. I decided I might be more in the mood for a drive. By this time, I was nearly in tears. Fortunately I met no one because I’m sure I would have been a terrifying sight. I imagined my hair a shocking mess, eyes rolling in madness and a pronounced limp due to the copious toe stubbing incidents of the day. Everything was annoying me now. The loud fan in the parking garage, that Gremlin a couple of parking spaces over, that was, for some unknown reason, painted an almost impossibly bright shade of yellow, and the fact that I had to manually unlock the door to my car since the battery in the remote had recently died. By now I was bumping around amongst those albino creatures just above the sand.

I streaked out of the garage into the night and immediately started to feel better. Gliding down the city backstreets at 2 AM has a great feeling to it. It’s as though some earthly disaster has happened and you alone are left to roam the empty city. Well, alone but for the taxis…I don’t think anything…asteroid…nuclear bomb explosion…could kill them off. I cruised around for some time, trying to mellow out. I threw in a CD to listen to and half-heartedly sang along to John Mayer songs with lyrics like: “..I know the heart of life is good..” ,thinking that tomorrow I might just find myself believing them again. I played a game with the traffic lights where I drove just a shade below the speed limit so that I could hit every single green. I headed home, not yet happy, but feeling a good deal better than I had all day. I was slowly rising back toward the surface…

Now what could I do that would take that last little edge off? To buoy myself further toward the surface? And this is the answer. I needed the closure of pouring my tortured soul into my keyboard and sending my cry of pain off into the void. And now I’ve broken the surface and I can see the stars. So, goodnight dear void.