On Melancholy

Depression isn't ever going to lift like a curtain. No matter how the chemicals might change, J will always think a certain way about things. I'm starting to think that's the truth of it. Unless he re-learns how to think, how to stop himself in his tracks and think differently every moment of every day, he is always going to behave in a depressed way. The outcomes will always be the same.

Does anybody ever really end up where they thought they were going to? Does anyone imagine they'll grow up to spend endless hours arranging the smallest of details, over and over again?

Fantasies tend to be sketchy on details. In your dreams it's the beach you see (not the bluebottles and the sunscreen, the sand in your swimmers).

But I can cope with the details. I can even enjoy them, particularly when there's a beach involved (less so the bluebottle stings).

In my mind there sticks a snippet of a Keats poem studied in school:

She dwells with Beauty - Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips;
Ay, in the very temple of delight
Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

I don't need to add much more to these words which perfectly express the interlocked nature of joy and sorrow; except to say that I am not overwhelmed by Melancholy. I know that what is good must end, but equally that other good things will come.

The happiness in my everyday life is sharpened by, prodded into existence even by the not so pleasant stings that inevitably occur.

Flo