On my very first meeting with my therapist
I told her everything.
She had very little response.
When it was all over she called my mother in and we spoke for awhile.
She said, "there is a line of where depression is."
She placed her hand face up about mid torso.
She said, "here's normal people whom are depressed."
She place her other hand under her breast. Just little higher over the other hand.
She said, " the people who are about at this line, have solvable problems. They're able to take anti depressants and hopefully turn their life around."
My mother looked hopeful, unaware of what my therapist was about to demonstrate.
My therapist said, "so the kind of depression your daughter has is, well.."
And she removed her hand from on top of the "line" on her mid-torso to about where her belt would lie.
Way under the normal line.
My therapist looked at me and said that I would have to work on myself for myself because I want to. (As if I hadn't been trying.) There is no other way to fix me.
This was a year ago. 365 days.
The words she said to me, I'm afraid to say, haven't made a damn difference.
I still explore the lines etched into my thighs.
I still pray every night before I go to bed. Not for a better life in the morning but for the absence of one.
I still see myself as the one flower in the garden who isn't strong or pretty enough to be put into the
bouquet.
I still feel empty with only my loneliness to keep me company.
My ability to cry has been tampered with for I no longer shed a tear from my sadness. Only when I see somebody's else life turn into something special, I cry for them, they have everything I've ever attempted to make possible. They just had the ability to do it right.
I haven't met with the therapist since.
But on her final report she sent my mother. The one my mother hid from me for so long.
On the very bottom.
In the box "recommendations/descriptive actions"
She wrote:
"Maybe life isn't for every one. Maybe your daughter just wasn't equipped with enough willpower to continue living."
So here I am a year later.
Living. Breathing. Walking.
Not because I want to.
Nor because I have to.
But because I'm stuck.
Between this black and white reality
This meaning of life
This colorless world with beauty only from nature
And the sadistic hopes of rare artists to recreate their own pain to sell for true beauty.
There are some who choose to live above the line of life
But then there are people like me
Who are destined to live below it.
