Little Coloured Candies

I’m six-years-old. There is a bottle, sitting on the table, filled with brightly coloured candies. Some red, some blue, and some bright yellow. They all taunt me, with glistening shells and I want to take them out. Indulge in these treats that are lying just beyond my reach.

Lifting my hand above my head, I am standing on my heels, gripping the tablecloth, hoping to steady myself. Reaching and stretching my body as far as I can go, just so I can retrieve what is dangling before my eyes.

That moment never arrives. I lose balance and grab the table for further support. Falling down to the floor, bringing the table with me, the glass jar crashing down. There’s a sound of something breaking and then the candies are hitting the floor and I can’t catch them fast enough. I can’t seem to get to them in time.

The next time the glass falls and breaks, I am 13. Only this time, there is no table, no brightly coloured candy balls of beauty, no little girl with barefoot determination standing in her grandparents living room, reaching out for what she cannot have. There is simply me, a young girl with an unrestrained galaxy in her chest, clutching the coloured lights of emotion, running through my veins, praying that someday someone will understand just how fragile she really is and how her body is a remnant, of misunderstanding and silence.

Every moment felt like the world’s largest carnival

Every moment felt like the world’s largest carnival. Except you weren’t a patron here, you were the mirror man, the woman with the extra arm, and the child with the leg that could turn inside out. You were the trapeze artist, barely keeping upright on the rope. And the entire world was lined up at your door, buying tickets to your life by the pound.

Little coloured balls that suddenly explode into a chasm of smoke, bursting across the sky. Asphyxiating your neck, your life. You give little bursts of emotion, juggling neurons and emotions that never seem to add up. Running the bullet train through a landscape called joy, descending into the cave of self loathing, steering the ship through the underwater cavern, called road of remorse, and hoping that someday you will break through, where you will no longer be a puppet on a string, for a brain chemistry that seems so far from normal.

Most of all you remember the day, when someone laughed and told you to just get out of it. Stop being so goddamn sensitive.

You tried, but 13 turned to 16 and then 18. Eighteen piled into 21 and suddenly it wasn’t funny anymore. Suddenly your hands couldn’t keep moving. You were too tired to keep juggling and telling jokes.

You’re 21, and for the first time, someone calls out the word depression. Tells you that is what it is and that you can put the comedy act in check. You finally understand that this is the net that you’ve been caught in, but you still thrash your hands against it, like the depression is an open jaw and you wonder if you will ever climb out.

Every now and again you feel like that girl at 13, you still struggle, still fall down. You still wonder where you are going. Still linger and ask questions about your life.

You still wonder where you are going.

It’s then that you remember the little girl, who tried to grab the glass jar but failed. You remember her devastation and her disappointment but you also remember what happened next, after she had cried and lamented over her loss. She had gotten up off the floor and dusted herself off.

So even though the moment had knocked the wind from her lungs and even though for a moment, life felt unfair, even when she’d lost what she wanted, and the universe had played its hand against her. Somehow she got up and grew. She turned 13 and had other experiences along the way.  You are reminded that the six-year-old had survived and turned 21.

And with this knowledge you know deep inside, that if she could make it, then you will too. No matter how heavy the depression feels, it is not the end of the line for you. You will just keep stretching and reaching out, because someday, you’ll get that glass off the table and when you do, you know that this time, it won’t break.