Day after day, you wake up and put on a brave face. You go to school and say all the right things. You smile and wave and laugh and do what you know you have to. You do what you know will keep people from asking questions.
People don’t understand. They don’t see the hurt behind your eyes. You go through a mix of emotions, blending together to form the bright reds of anger and the deep blues of despair. Then comes the overwhelming jumble of colors creating a deathly black of depression, that even when the brightest of whites are added, cannot fully recover enough to slip out of the shade of wearisome gray. This gray takes over your life. It finds its way through every nook and cranny of your body until the very thump of your lively heart is beaten to a tiresome whimper. It weeds its way into your brain and fogs every thought, every feeling, until the cloud of gray pilots your life into a spiral of total destruction.
This feeling cannot be wished away. No amount of tears can be shed to rid the emptiness, nor enough hours of sleep. It likes to linger long enough to watch the damage, just as a pyromaniac finds it sickly amusing to watch a building go down in flames.
So how is this feeling fought? What is the conquering secret that prevails in humans on a daily basis? It is not about how you fight the gray in your life, but what you fight it with. All it takes is a single sliver of resistance. From the root of the mind, behind the raging gusts of fog, lives a piece of your brain unharmed. This center never falters, and this center never fails. There are those who can never quite rid themselves of the dreary sensation. It’s not that they lack it, but they merely let it slip away as if fighting the battle isn’t worth the long road to recovery afterwards. You are not among them. You sense the stubbornness of your body, telling you to find clarity in this mess.
This stubborn feeling gains control of your hand. Pulling it up in place, you touch your mouth. You know you can still speak. You place your hands on a quiet stomach. You know your hunger is subsided. Then, you hear your heartbeat. Just a simple gesture, but it reveals so much. You are living, and you are breathing. You are alive, and that’s what matters.
That tiny rebellion in your mind reaches its breaking point and light bursts through the body- a light so strong, so bold, it penetrates the most wicked blackness of all. The grayness in your heart is ripped out of its place, clinging for dear life but torn away in one electrifying jolt of freedom. The rapid thump in your heart is fully restored and your once cloud-ridden mind sees a new spectrum of colors.
Depression is felt, and depression is conquered. Your doubts subside and a burst of blissful yellow takes its place. You decide that all the colors- black, blue, yellow, red- can still be seen glittering in your eyes on a bad day, pounding on the surface and begging to come out. But you close your eyes and wash them away with the confidence of your new self.