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Last night, I stayed in for the first time in weeks. After the first social engagement got canceled, I quickly put Plan B into action but by the time my friends got back to me, I was too lazy to get up and get dressed. Plus my parents have been complaining that I never stay in and spend quality evenings with them. By “quality evenings” I mean, me in my room, my sister in her room, my mom in her room, and my dad downstairs watching TV. The Dado family all under one roof.

At first I was panicky about my lack of Saturday night plans. It occurs to me that I’ve grown an aversion to spending time with myself, and that lately I’ve been desperately filling up my social calendar so as to avoid those long evenings with me and my lonesome. When I’m alone I get depressed and when I get depressed–well, getting depressed isn’t exactly the best way to party on a Saturday night, is it?

But I’m all for trying out new things. So last night, I decided to skip all social activities and take up my shrink’s advice and “sit with my Depression.” The problem with me (and most people I suppose) is that I do everything it takes to avoid being depressed or deny that I’m feeling that way. But there are times when sitting down and just feeling the depression is healthy. I forgot why exactly it’s supposed to be healthy but I ignored that little detail and decided to go along with this plan. I didn’t really have much to do.

So I sat with Depression in the bathroom while Elliott Smith sang to us about faking it through the day with some help from Johnny Walker Red. I sat there for a very long time, not really thinking or doing anything. At first I thought I’d try to figure out why I was feeling depressed but once I did that, I realized it didn’t make me feel any better. Eventually, I got bored sitting with Depression because he’s really not that much fun to be with. Plus, he keeps smoking my cigarettes, which I think is very rude.

So I picked up my guitar (I had gone into my room at this point) and played a random chord. Then I played another random chord. Pretty sound the random chords started sounding good together and I had a nice little riff going right there. I sang out gibberish to the melody I made and after a while, there were words to sing along to the music as the gibberish became coherent sentences. I was amazed. It’s been months since I last wrote a song all by myself–guitars and lyrics and all–so I was pretty fucking stoked. The song I made is called Escape and it’s about doing whatever it takes to be happy and to get way from the lousy state you’re in. Of course it’s chock-full of angst and I’m sure a lot of people would say that it sucks, but who cares? I wrote a song and although it needs some tweaking, I’m pretty fucking happy with it. It’s been a while since I created something I actually like. Depression might be a lousy conversationalist, but he’s good for inspiration.

Every time I get depressed, I stay that way for a while because I keep thinking that I’ll never be happy again. Which is both true and not true, when you come to think of it. If what I want is the happily-ever-after ending propaganda spread by fairy tales and Disney cartoons, of course I’m never going be happy. But life, the way I see it, is like a long dark hallway with little dim lamps placed at random intervals. It’s all a matter of trying to find the will and determination to keep walking that scary hallway to reach those sparks of light, those brief rare moments where happiness in its purest form can be tasted, before the world goes dark again.

Kristel once told me that depression and happiness is overrated. The only thing we should strive for, she said, is calm. I guess you can say that last night, I was the calmest I’ve been in a while. Calm is good. It’s just staying in the moment, accepting things as they come without angsting about how things should be better, blah blah blah. Because no matter how much you wish things were better, they’re not. So you might as well just go with the flow, acknowledge whatever it is you’re feeling, and keep walking that long dark hallway towards the light. The yellow glow of the lamps is very very pretty.