In Blue/Out Pink

Darkness isn't always the worst thing. There's a cliche line to ruin this whole first paragraph like "it's the darkness that defines the light" or something else some absolutely unbearable optimist would have tattooed on their forearm, but that also kind of runs exactly contrary to the thesis statement way back in Sentence One. Nobody's really looking for the light here, but that's the thing about light, it's always out there, lurking in the... well, not "the dark," that's not going to pan out, conceptually. I'm not sure how light lurks really. Maybe it just relies on being really goddamned fast. Like cheetahs. I've never seen no cheetahs do no lurking.

Of course, if you're prone to clinical depression, "darkness" is, in fact, actually the worst thing. I'm very fortunate that I haven't been stuck with that specific proclivity. I'm not going to say I'm "blessed" that all my mental health debilitation potential lies in the direction of paralysis by anxiety and indecision, but from what I've heard, seen and experienced being around with and sometimes cohabiting with people who are prone to depression, that seems like an orders-of-magnitude worse deal. But that also may be evidence that my anxiety issues are laughably manageable compared to others. I've been able to get away with it without having to resort to medication, other than the soothing serotonin-seeking behaviors like low-stakes, almost-no-perceptible-pace empire- or city-building computer games or stitching together an endless roll of YouTube videos about other people playing empire- or city-building games. Smoking has a shorter learning curve, but it's more expensive in the long run.

If you're in a place of safety, though, and you know you can extract yourself, go ahead and throw yourself into that deep, dark pool every now and again. For me, I experienced a weird combination of events starting with me getting COVID on the weekend I was supposed go get my vaccine booster, living through the isolation of quarantine, then having my adult son (the only other person left living here) gone for extended periods with his friends or his girlfriend (as he rightly should be. At 24, he should be drunk under a stranger's coffee table at least once every six months still) and I found myself... lonely. This might not be that much of a revelation: alone and isolated = feelings of being alone and isolated. I'm not claiming I've broken any new ground in the field of Feelings Algebra here, let's be clear.

I've only ever felt like myself, like fully myself, when I'm alone. Part of my anxiety kick is some really acute social anxiety, so there's an inbuilt level of self-awareness that is always sensitive to contact to the point of rubbing itself bloody, like a marathoner's nipple. Even to the exclusion of people I know and love, alone is the only time you can achieve that full-body exhale, the full release of the shoulders, the complete de-clench-ination of the buttocks. It's the only time I've ever been able to dance, a literal emotional and physical impossibility in the presence of another human's gaze.

So the loneliness was a surprise, foreign and curious, and instead of letting it drag at me, I did the emotional aikido move and let it land. I let in the restlessness, the discomfort, the sensation of being trapped by circumstances of my own making, all in the safest and minor-est of ways. Being a big dumb man, I knew eventually it would all harden into stupid anger, the emotional anesthetic lovingly provided by testosterone that convinces you heart stuff is way less sharp and hurty if you can just punch a thing or yell at other cars while in traffic. It's a lie of course and the root of the most harmful man-first social conventions built to condone it. Anger is, after all, still a feeling, and a Big Feel at that. But remember, we're accepting, we're blending, we're redirecting, we're taking that emotional momentum and turning to follow it, curbing its destructive potency and relaxing into the energy until it converts into something useful.

Normally this means a trip to the Home Depot for some spackle to fill a fist-sized hole in the drywall.*

This time it meant some action. Stand up. Pace. Help your friends with stuff. Clear out the clutter you've been stepping around since Christmas. Tell the girl at work you're in love with her (if she seems receptive to that, not just out of the blue, like a psycho). Eat four donuts and a candy bar in one sitting. Get some shit done.

Dilute that testosterone, the adrenaline, the cortisol with some serotonin in all the ways they recommend. Action, movement, indulgence, sunlight...

Well, shit, I guess it was going to catch up to us eventually.

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*Note this is a generic example. I've never punched a wall, nor another human. There has never been a rage that made it feel worth taking the chance of hitting a stud. The wall kind or the human kind.