Another autumn

So I’ve passed the biggest milestone I’ve set myself. The Master’s is finished and I’m moved back home. So what now? Literally, what now?

I’m sitting in the park as I write, as I always do this time of year. The leaves are changing from green to gold, as they always do, and the air is turning cool, as it always does. And like last year, I feel myself filling with excitement. The unknown that lies ahead isn’t quite as terrifying as I thought it might be. I’m feeling daring. I want to keep pushing myself.

The dark figure hasn’t shown himself for a while. His long lanky limbs and blurred face don’t hover behind me as they used to. He doesn’t sit quietly in my bedroom waiting for me to wake. And I think I may even be missing him.

I can feel the pull back to the city and I’m sure I’ll be commuting again, and life will speed up as it always does. But for now, I want to enjoy the changing colours of the leaves and the warm afternoon sun before autumn gives way to the cold and damp of winter.

Scratching into paper

I must have been thinking about the dark figure over the past few days, images of him bent over, hovering or simply standing behind me keep flashing across my mind. I had an itching feeling this evening that made me grab my biros and my notepad. I had an overwhelming urge to scratch that dark profile into the paper, tearing across his face and puncturing his stomach.

The process was actually very therapeutic. It was as if I had freed part of him from me. The version of him that spilled onto the paper was no longer fixed in the dark web of my mind. I almost expected him to leap from the page itself and dive out the window, plunging into the street below.

Here is one of my scratchings.

– Saffron

April

I haven’t had a dark thought in months. Sometimes I wonder whether the dark figure is lonely without my darkness. At the moment I spend my days reading and writing; Derrida, Foucault and Bourdieu. It’s almost cliché.

I think the running has really helped. There is something inherently mine about it. I run by the river where the pink morning sky hangs behind the April blossom. I often think back to my teens, when I’d climb the hill to the cemetery at home, swing my legs on the bench and let the tears roll down my cheeks, wishing them to empty me of my emptiness.

For now I can’t seem to cry. No matter how much I want to. I can’t seem to indulge myself in my darkness the way I could.

I’m sure there’s a story in here somewhere, but it doesn’t quite feel ready yet.

– Saffron

Bringing back Saffron

I’ve not given Saffron much time lately. I’ve been enjoying temporarily living without her, pretending to just be me, stripped of all the nonsense. But I know that I can neither push Saffron away, nor ignore the nonsense forever…

I’ve managed to find safe places and ways of keeping the dark figure at bay. Quiet corners of the huge university library; drifting slowly beside the river to the sound of the rain; forty minutes on the treadmill; talking with friends for hours. The dark figure does still visit when it’s dark and I’m lonely, but he doesn’t linger as he used to. 

I have a lot of love to give to Xavier, which gives me a lot of strength. Looking to our future is something that keeps me pushing through. But this coming year, I want to be able to focus on the present. I want to savour it and enjoy it as if it were the last moment I have. Rather than instinctively wanting to run from it.

– Saffron

Wishing everyone a peaceful new year. 

– Me

Depression feels like

Depression can feel like you’re trying to walk in the daylight. But the dark figure behind you is holding a huge black umbrella above you. It blocks out the light and the sunshine, casting long dark shadows everywhere you walk. 

Depression can feel like the dark figure has chained his body to yours. Making it impossible to move. Like his weight is dragging you towards the earth. Like his weight is dragging your mind further inside itself.

Depression can feel like the dark figure has wrapped himself around your face and around your body. Spreading his heavy blackness across every surface of your skin and blocking every gateway to the world. He separates you from reality. Distancing you from every touch, every taste, every sound and every sight.

– Saffron