Who Am I?

A dancing clown, tumbling and cartwheeling through life. Sometimes I am a happy clown, sometimes I am a sad clown, but for the most part I am a constantly moving mass of energy. When the fatigue hits me, or anxiety makes me fidget and my restless mind doesnt seem to stop, I cook, listen to music or read.

I feel strongly about most things, I am very vocal about equality, justice and the freedom to eat cake whenever, wherever and however I want. 

Or fries, or ice-cream or carbs. 

Sometimes sadness overwhelms me and drags me down a deep dark hole, and I zip through the pain and reach a point where everything becomes numb and I function on automaton. High Functioning is the term I believe. But then at those times, I either sleep or I read or I binge watch multiple episodes of Friends and The Office. There is something comforting about the canned laughter track on Friends that prompts you to laugh out loud, even when you dont feel much like it. But The Office, it is something else. The hopeless romanticism leading to convenient comfort in Jim & Pam's relationship, or Michael Scott's complete withdrawal from reality, the ability to find familial warmth even amongst a group of people that are completely different from each other and most importantly, transitioning from dismissing the goofy Dwight Schrute to severely disliking him, to falling in love with his loyalty and loony behaviour. There is definitely something to be said for the comfort of disassociating from your own reality and diving deep into a make believe one.

I dont know if you can relate, but when I come out of one these deep gray fogs, all my senses feel heightened. All the colours are sharp and bright, everything is louder, my mind feels clearer, and I actually feel like conversing. Tasting and feeling the shape of words and sentences that tumble out of my mouth in a rush. Quick, before I am dragged back into the fog again. 

I feel like my eyes are open wider, to take in everything I see, every speck of dust, every single pattern on every single thing around me. The faces of the people I meet, brought into sharp focus and I quickly memorise their features, just in case they go blurry again.

I struggle to call it depression. Sometimes I'll say low mental health, or I am having an episode, or I am in a slump, or a fog. Any word but that!

I think of my these episodes as a big, giant sack of marbles that I carry. The bag keeps shifting, changing shape. Sometimes lighter, sometimes heavier, rolling around and resting at different points on my body. But it's always there - to be carried. 

I struggled with the discomfort of it initially, but now it has become easier to travel with. Onwards and Upwards.