Overcast

                I find it very comforting when the weather when matches my mood. Like I’m in sync with the universe or something. Like the buildings and the sidewalks and the grass and the trees and the birds and the worms all know exactly how I’m feeling… because they’re feeling that way too. Like I’m a little less alone.
                I woke up this morning to gray skies and a chilly breeze and the pitter patter of rain outside my window. By the time I left for work, the rain had stopped, but the skies were still murky - all cried out, but now drained and dreary and weary and bleak.
                I guess I’m not the only one.
                Lately, I’ve been watching this girl that is me – and also not me – just go to work and go home and go to bed. Every day. Day after day. Blowing off people who think they’re her friends. Not keeping important appointments. Letting her phone ring and ring and go to voicemail. Erasing voicemails without even listening to them.

Ignoring the boyfriend and the boyfriend’s friends and the friends with benefits and the boys from work and the boys in the city. (The desire to fuck is completely gone – too much exertion, too much trouble, too much worry. Too much obsessing over her hideous naked body and her stomach and her flab and her cuts and her breath and her hair and her legs and her armpits and her pussy.)

Telling people she’s out and about, she’s busy, she’s babysitting, she’s at a party, a movie, a concert. When she’s really sitting in bed at home talking to herself, talking to people on the screen, laughing and arguing and joking with imaginary people in her own head. Binging on junk food. Drinking herself to sleep. Waking up feeling gross and sick and embarrassed and stupid.

I know I’m watching her sink further and further into gray. I want to help her but I don’t know how. Because I know that deep down, she’s just really, really tired. Of everything. And that part of her – part of me – has found some solace in the isolation that depression brings and a sense of rest in the laziness and serenity in the lonely silence.

See, all I ever want to do anymore is sleep. Or eat. Or drink. Or watch TV. Or work on a puzzle. Or stare at the ceiling. Anything mindless, that doesn’t require me to think or cause me to worry or force me to expel any energy. I already feel like I don’t have enough to go around.

Interacting with other people is too strenuous. Leaving the apartment is too intimidating. Dealing with problems and responsibilities is too overwhelming. The safety and security of being tucked away from the world and not having to participate in it is too addicting. And the longer I huddle in my own little world, the less I want to leave it. The less I want to return to the real world. The less I think I even should.

And the more I start to wonder if I ever, ever will.