Guest

Guest: 

it's more that nothing seems gains the same purchase now, no firm and lasting hold to the things that used to bring me low. Dark moods would seem to arrive on a whim, lingering for days in various shades of their intensity. They still visit and I will often feel the edge of their approach, knowing that soon my life will bid them welcome with little choice, depression, in all of it's stages and degrees, gives little say to its arrival, and those who suffer this wish it wasn't so, that we could simply turn this guest away and refuse it entrance to our lives. Yet sadly, things don't seem to work this way, there are tools to ease this burden, therapy, medication for those in need, but nothing really prevents they're arrival. It's just how things are, the reality of depression. 

compared to so many, I've been fortunate indeed. My life is seldom troubled in such a way that brings upheaval, no medications, nothing that seems more threatening than the heavy weight of sadness. Of course sadness doesn't really capture this sense of weight at all, it's a pure and deep intensity that touches to the bone. There isn't quite the word for it though, it's mood is too familiar to be named, as if there were a term for the feel and weight of skin against us. It's the same with calling it a guest, a visiting mood or condition, it's much more intimate than anything that visits, existing more truly as a part of me, no sense wishing it as anything other. I have come to the point of accepting all I am, every aspect and through all that happens, nothing is apart from me, nothing separate from this moment. 

no matter what it holds.

and that bring me back to start, for whatever reason, perhaps for many, there's an openness now, a more spacious quality to my daily living. As mentioned, nothing seems gains the same purchase as before, depression still existing, and often with the same intensity as ever. Yet something now is different, a subtle shift in my perception, that this, and whatever else appears, it's simply how things are, not a guest other than my own wounded self seeking comfort. Everything's accepted, belonging here, welcomed by virtue of its appearance. I'm certainly not always happy that this is so, my welcome is often disgruntled and at first might seem unwilling. There's still depression, dark moods arriving on a whim - but I'm whole, and I see this, my own allowing nature, spaciousness itself. Nothing gains a lasting purchase here, and everything is welcomed.

exactly as it is.

(even if there's a wish to change it)

~

Peace, Eric