8 half empty water cups

Bringing 8 half empty water cups from my bedside table to the kitchen is made easy by the fact that I wait tables. It only takes one trip, and this gives me a tiny pang of pride. My left arm holds 4 cups against my chest, and my right hand pinches the tops of the other 4 like a claw machine delivering a prize to the mouth of my dishwasher. 

I once saw a video of a French waiter carrying about 20 wine glasses in one hand–a huge mound of crisscrossed stems. He was so, fantastically calm–bored really. He could not be less interested in what could have so easily been a giant mess. Different people carry things differently. 

I write about depression a lot. I think, for me, it is almost always present in what I create–it is the lens through which my story is told, and it is the thing against which I feel the most friction. This has been an insecurity of mine for a few reasons, not least of which was that, in my early 20s, I was told that being sad was the hallmark of my personality. That I was, verbatim, a bummer to be around. 

Not, like, super encouraging, right? 

I get angry when I think about this because I actually believe myself to be quite a joyful person. I don’t think that depression and joy are mutually exclusive, and I in fact know that people who struggle with depression have an incredible and unique capacity for joy. 

I have always been good at telling stories–so good that I tell myself thousands a day. Some good, some neutral, some devastating. The trick (and the trouble) is to believe none of them. 

Think of these stories this way–you are sat in front of a screen and made to watch a movie starring you. Every scene shows some way you could be hurt, or could hurt others, and how exactly that pain came to be. No matter what, it’s all your fault. It sounds like a kind of brain-washing torture, right? 

Why would you want to get up, go back outside, and live all of this potential pain? Why would you risk it? For a very long time, and sometimes still, I didn’t. I stayed very still, sitting on my hands, avoiding pain. 

I guess the answer is because none of that actually happened yet. None of it will, or has to happen. Believing that–knowing it–is so, unbelievably difficult. 

I don’t know how much pain I’ll feel tomorrow or next week or next year. I do know, though, that it hasn’t been decided yet.

I wish I could carry 20 wine glasses and not worry about dropping them. Instead, though, I’ll carry 8 from my bedroom to the kitchen and feel a bit better.