Comets

'Verweilung, auch am Verstrautesten nicht, ist uns gegeben' - Rilke

If skin could tell stories, mine would have a pretty interesting story to tell.

The first thing you have to understand is that they aren't needed reasons to be depressed. You simply are depressed. It's not something that happens following the pattern of 'cause and consequence'. OK, it's true that there is often a trigger. But it is a disease such as cancer. Slower, but...

What I mean is that it's not necessary to blame anyone.

The next thing I want to say is that depression is like a deep well. There is no easy way out. I'm not even sure there's a way out. Sometimes I feel that I'll always have one foot in the well.

I'm not sure what I mean, really. I always try to look... optimistic, at least. How ironic, isn't it? An optimistic depressive. But if I don't try I won't get it. At the end of the day, there is nothing to save. That also means that I have nothing to lose. 

I'm not sure why I'm explaining this. Surely, the vast majority of people will not care at all about this. Overall, we all have our problems. The big... drawback is that depression doesn't have a physical manifestation. No strange lumps growing, no physical pain. Usually... dark circles and weight loss, yep. And a general apathy.

I couldn't tell when mine started. What my friends call the Great Trigger took place six months ago... exactly. But before that I was already somewhat faded. I started losing weight after that moment. Doctors said it was anorexia nervosa, but it wasn't exactly that. I didn't want to eat, of course not. But I was not hungry.

It's the great tragedy of our era. They say that cancer is the great disease of our century, but I don't think so. Cancer is much older, it has always existed. And while nowadays there are more causes, there are also more solutions. It can be cured in many cases.

Yet with depression electroshock is still used.

I'm exhausted. Our world is moving too fast. I remember when I was fourteen all journals spoke of anorexia and of helping the girls that were suffering it. I remember thinking that I would never fall into something so absurd. We were all very concerned. And then... they all forgot. All these girls starving, all the tragedy behind the fashion industry. People stopped caring. It wasn't new anymore, it was... it wasn't morbid anymore. And the girls continue to die of hunger surrounded by food.

Mine wasn't so strong. It's not, I mean. You never quite overcomes it, no matter what they say. You always see yourself... chubby. Only one step away from being obese. And ugly. Unappealing. Generally unpleasant.

I just... I wasn't hungry. I saw myself fatty, yep, but I didn't kill myself of hunger on purpose. I just didn't feel like eating. Breakfast and dinner were expendable. And lunch some days too. I was queasy at times. Today it's all that prevails.

Nausea.

But actually everything came from the same place. Depression. I'll always think that it's the great tragedy of our century. Where does this pain, this despair, comes? It's like having a stone in the stomach and a hole in the chest. An empty, a burden... everything drains me. Nothing really matters, despite the fact that everything is right. Good things don't matter and bad things... bad things are too bad to go ahead. 

Why get out of bed? Why to do... anything?

And nobody cares. You're simply depressed. You're simply...

We are left behind. They try for days, weeks, sometimes months. But in the end they always give up. At the end they always say that we don't fight to survive. Because it's not something physical.

The great tragedy of depression is this. It's... a self-immolation. We only hurt ourselves, so actually... 

Actually, what?

I don't know what I mean by all this. I'm aimlessly stumbling, without direction. My entire life is like that. Flashes. A sort of comet bouncing in the dark, a rock without a defined source and without a place to belong. Occasionally there is a spark that gets me going. Get up, clean everything, make yourself useful.

Then everything turns off.

Vacuum.

It's about loneliness. Being alone in a sea of ​​people, without having a single hand to hold. The feeling that we have lost something. That we lost something much, much before birth. Or maybe it was never there.

And who cares?

It comes down to the same thing, in the end. It's really difficult to get out of this. It's almost impossible to leave it behind without sequelae. It's very easy to believe that all is well and collapse suddenly. Sometimes is enough just a single blow to the house of cards crumbles. A disappointment. A...

Acting, that's the key. Act and continue acting until oneself believe what he or she does. "I'm fine", "It's not so terrible". 

"I'm stronger than it looks," that's my favorite.

But sometimes... just sometimes...

I guess sooner or later I'll find a sun whose orbit is worthwhile. Or who has a light strong enough even for my shadows. Meanwhile... 

I once met a German guy who used to recite poetry to me at night. I don't even know how to write his name, but for me it always sounded something like Jürgen. His eyes were very light blue, his hair was very blond and his face was round, and he had sweet smile. His skin used to be an amalgam of colors, a sort of patched surface with red, white and pink. Too pale for the Spanish sun, my sweet German boy. I used to give him back rubs with moisturizer at night, after full days of walking. He used to laugh softly while I was doing that. He didn't speak a word of Spanish, I knew only five words in German and our English was almost a joke. And yet...

Feelings are a complicated thing. How much of Jürgen was real, how much I invented basing on his way to smile? What would he think of the black-haired girl who sang at night? What led him to recite poetry to me?

Rilke, that was the poet. I didn't remember it when I wanted to speak about him, and perhaps was for best. Rilke will stay in the nights under the stars, on the Camino de Santiago. In those moments which are what make me go forward. Flashes. People passing by our life and disappearing, leaving behind a blurry photo, words, memories of a laugh. Flashes, yep.

We fade ourselves. But it always seems to be someone willing to deliver something at just the right time. When only embers remained, Jürgen appeared with his outlandish air and his easy laugh. 

There will always be a reason to go on.

What story would tell my skin?

The story of those summer nights, for example. How can you break the veil of sadness with all the ease in the world, how easy it is to trust. 

Who am I to talk about depression, sadness, love? Me, the one who fell in love in a fleeting summer, sharing the road, knowing that it was destined to end? 

Me, the one who never stops loving anyone.

Don't give up, that's the key. No matter how much pain seems to exist. There is always another comet in the universe, on his or her way to nowhere. Another blurry photo to share, and some words that we don't even understand.

We aren't allowed to linger, even with what is most intimate.

But just that, memories, intimacy, is what prevails.