Depression: The Struggle (Work In Progress)

Chapter 6: Summer Before Junior Year

The sixteenth birthday, for most, is a big day. I had never really given much thought to mine because I really didn't have birthday parties growing up. It didn't bother me much. We always got together as a family for birthdays with a few gifts and cake. Like most things in my life, at the time, that sufficed me.

Besides, I was still contemplating the school decision. By the time I got my letter, I had already decided that I'd stay where I was. I was comfortable in my city, and I was doing more work with my church.

Outside of doing Sunday school, we had started a youth outreach, where we had a service on Friday nights. It wasn't a normal church service. It was to help keep teenagers off the streets. We had basketball and football games set up, along with other activities and food. We wanted a healthy mix of church and fun.

After a few hours of play and food, we'd gather everyone for a brief service and dismiss everyone back to other activities until time was up, usually about nine o'clock. I had the idea to make a group of those to do skits, since I had done acting and some directing at school.

So, our skits became a part of the weekly outreach. I preached a few of the sermons, directed toward teenage life. I felt better with these things because I kept myself busy with church during that summer. Naturally, when I was alone, I still suffered. It was ironic in some ways.

A group of the younger teenagers confided in me, almost like a counselor. I helped them and prayed with them, but I couldn't either do the same for myself or seek someone to help me with my great issue.

I was still a closed book to the world. I went through life, around others, like nothing was wrong. I probably could have won an Academy Award for best actor in a drama for the performance. I did feel slightly better with all the activities that occupied my time.

Unfortunately, I couldn't convince myself that this is how I should think all the time...to occupy my mind with the positive thoughts and times around others.

I never took much thought into the phrase "An idle mind is the devil's workshop," but that was the story of my life when I was alone. The bullying I had received in junior high, my grandma's death, my insecurity about my looks, and the friends I'd lost were all that consumed my mind when I was alone.

I decided that, since the idle time was such a negative influence on my thinking, I'd pick writing back up. When I was in elementary school, I started writing what I thought would be a book I'd finalize when I got older.

It was a story about a group of kids in a city that had a mysterious mine on the outskirts of town. Unfortunately, either between moving or a hurricane, I lost my story. I always remembered the premise of my story but nothing more.

I also remembered how much fun I had and how time just seemed to fly by when I wrote. Surely, writing again would take my mind to a far away land where my troubles did not exist.

Also, it didn't hurt that in my upcoming junior year, I'd signed up to be on the school newspaper staff. I could certainly use the practice for that. Being in honors classes with required reading assignments for so many years had pretty much ruined the idea of reading for me.

It wasn't the reading that bothered me; it was more the merrier fact that required reading meant required book reports and essays. That pretty much took all the "fun" out of the whole mantra that "reading is fundamental".

That said, I did always enjoy other writing assignments. I had always made excellent grades in English, which is why my English teacher for both years -who was also the newspaper teacher- had suggested I take newspaper.

At my school, you couldn't join the staff until junior year. I was excited about the opportunity. I could never come up with a story that I thought was as good as my previous story, so I decided to start writing poetry. I ended up having a couple poems published in two anthologies.

Naturally, I couldn't afford to buy the book, even though I had worked part time the past few summers. As an American Indian, I was able to start working at 14 with a local program. Nonetheless, I didn't have the extra money.

I had started buying new clothes and shoes with the money I saved from working to help my parents save some money. I also had to save up for my graduation stuff to help with that.

All in all, the summer passed by pretty quickly with everything I did to occupy my free time.