This Isn't A Feel-Good Post. Seriously.

Holy shit, y'all. Being depressed sucks.

     I spend way too much time in my own head. A psychologist would likely point out that this behavior is a coping mechanism I developed in childhood, probably even before my father killed himself. Things are so much better in my head. For one thing, I’m a better person in there. In my head I’m not short-tempered. I’m not envious of other people. I don’t lie. I have confidence and ambition. Sometimes I’m still a superhero in my own head, but no longer the spandex-wearing type; more the middle-aged superhero who wears jeans and sneakers, and takes the trash out, but can still pick up a car and throw it the length of a football field. Or maybe fly.

     I’m sure it’s not healthy, all this time I spend in my head. Real life becomes more difficult. Like the reality of, say, getting out of bed. Or doing the most normal, mundane things, like helping your daughter with her homework, or taking the car to get serviced, or talking to another human being. My whole life I’ve been labeled an extrovert, and I suppose that’s mostly true, except for the whole part where there are days and days that I’m scared to walk out the front door. Or answer the phone. I’m not an extrovert on those days. I’m not a get shit done guy on those days, or the laugh-a-minute guy who's always got at least three witty ripostes in his back pocket. On those days, I don't eat. Or sleep. On those days I’m the guy who wears a hoodie, with the hood pulled over his head. In the house. On those days I’m the guy who stares out the window for a really long time before saying, Nope. Fuck that. It’s too big out there. On those days I begin to ask myself just how much like my old man I really am.

     I’m having one of those days.

     To give you some context of how stupefying and train-stopping this shit can be, I will tell you that, since I wrote that previous sentence, I have been sitting here, staring at it, and doing nothing else, for over forty minutes. That is completely not normal, especially for a guy who is easily distracted by shiny things. (I just spent the last ten minutes staring at the word "things," until I swear it started to crawl around on the screen, but maybe that was just my eyes, or maybe it's this new laptop that I just bought yesterday and it has some strange word-crawling feature I activated on accident, and now I'm gonna have to chase all my words down and get them back where they belong, or maybe the fucking thing is haunted, which at this point I'd be okay with because at least I'd have to think about something, like the fact that my laptop is possessed, and I don't even know a real priest. Shit.)

     Days like this I really wish the universe would give you a time-out. A 24 hour free pass on life. Keep your hoodie on, watch movies that distract you, if only for a while, don't answer the door or the phone, existence can wait. Yes, you're still going to have to deal with the mess you've made - just not today. That's a really inviting proposition, and also a really scary one. Because I can see stretching one free day into two, into ten, into a month... you get my drift. Past a certain point, you'd become a snake eating its own tail. Which would suck, especially if snake doesn't taste like chicken, as I have been told my entire life.

     So, this is me being honest about where I am today. I'm not asking you to fix it. But if you're also having one of those days, they hey, you got company. 

     And I got an extra hoodie.