Grieving is not the same thing as depression but today I thought of a definition of depression I once heard. Depression: not caring- leaving things the way they are because one doesn’t care enough to change it- and then there was an example which I don’t remember.
I heard or read it when we were first married and living in Park Slope. I was jobless and sat in this little spare room the size of a closet looking for jobs on the computer by the window every day for months. One day I saw a mosquito near that window of the old brownstone and rather than get bitten, I smashed it against the window with something (my slipper? usually my chosen method). But I was comfortable and didn’t have a paper towel or anything to clean it up with there in the room. The mosquito stayed there for a very long time- possibly until we moved. I would see it there- I knew it was there…but I didn’t care to clean it up. I think maybe I was depressed.
Thought of this today because I bought a CD player some months after you died so Audrey and I could listen to more music. It’s a little complicated though and for some reason the alarm was set to go off at 1 pm every day. It goes off at 1 pm every day and I go and shut it off. I am not able to get out the instruction manual and figure out how to turn it off. Today I fiddle with it for a while without the instructions because I muster up some strength and say aloud, “OK, this has to stop every day.” But it’s tricky- like I said. So, I just shut it off until tomorrow.
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