I have a gift.

If someone hands me a lump of muddy rock, I see a galaxy of diamonds in my hand, shining and revolving and shattering through the limitations left behind by the earth that birthed a lump of sullied mineral. It happens with everything in my life. Every thing. Every creature. Every person. No matter how small, I can always see the Things That Could Be.

I consider it my super-power.

There is, however, a blind spot. Of all the magical things in the world, the lights stop when I look at myself.  There’s a black hole where a mirror should be.

Depression is not easy.

Explaining depression to anyone else is not easy.

The best you can do is string one thought to another and hope the lanterns light up some semblance of an idea once you finally get the courage to hang them up.  I don’t expect many people to understand, so much as to say – if you do, there’s someone out here that knows how you feel.

Today was a very hard day for no real reason. In fact, my worst days are never set off by anything in particular.

A blank page.

A crooked line.

An intangible, empty thought.

None of those are important things.  They are just lacking, which all comes back around to that dark eye of depression.

Today started as a regular day. I nuzzled into my over sized chair with my lap top to do a bit of writing and watch a string of movies in my queue. Before I could catch it, the dark eye had arrived. Today, I uttered something that I never thought I would say. It really showed me where I was mentally and it, quite frankly, scared the crap out of me. My thought?

“Maybe I should just stop writing.” Yes, that meant forever.

*sits and really absorbs that for a moment*

Admittedly, I had a myriad of not so lovely thoughts, but that was the one that really stopped me. Some depression hits you like a ton of bricks and some depression sneaks in as a fog. Both are dangerous and the worst possible thing is just pacify the gloom.  At least, that’s how it works for me.  That being said, this is not written as a cry for help or comments, because it’s absolutely not. This is a post of accountability on my part.

I have power and control over my perception. I am of the strange and the real and have as much capacity for light as anything else.So I have to think about circling around, becoming a muddy lump of rock, becoming something that the dark eye doesn’t recognize. I have to become something brighter than before.

Do I know how I’m going to do that? No.

Baby steps are good, so I’ll just take the very wise advice of Mr. Magorium and hire an accountant. ” An accountant. According to the word, must be a cross between a counter and a mutant and that may be precisely what we need.”

(If that quote isn’t good enough for you, let’s depart on this note, “We Breathe. We Pulse. We Regenerate. Our hearts beat. Our minds create. Our souls ingest. Thirty-seven seconds, well used, is a lifetime.”)