virginia's musings

But I know that would do me no good. I know that wouldn’t actually make me happy. In fact, it would probably just make me hate myself.

I was in the deepest throes of my depressive tendencies in my senior year of high school, I think. Those around me, peers and teachers, probably just thought I had a serious bout of senioritis. However? It was something more than that.

The weight of the world (preparing my transition into higher education with little to no guidance as a poor, first-generation kid), tied with the Rhode Island winter, made me feel like it was too difficult to go on with life, to do much of anything. So I’d rather go to sleep.

It’s difficult to admit, but these depressive throes run in the family. I don’t want to throw anyone under the bus, but I’ve seen my family run away from their lives using sleep, by being horizontal, by retreating from the world around them. It was both nature and nurture for me.

So I copied what I saw. I lived nocturnally. On the days that I could muster the strength to go to school, when I got back home, I immediately went back to bed. It would be 3:30 pm, and I’d already want to retreat into the night. After my melancholic slumber, I’d wake up nearly half a day later, sometimes as late as 3 o’clock in the morning. I still cared about getting good enough grades, so I did my homework upon my middle-of-the-night rising. I would work for a couple of hours, then take a nap for an hour and a half before waking up again to get ready for school (if I had it in me to go that day).

The cycle continued, and I continued being depressed. Things got better as the seasons warmed, but boy, was that seasonal affective something serious back in the day.

Not to mention, I couldn’t stand my living environment! Pest-infested apartments I lived in as a youth made me live in constant paranoia. I couldn’t be awake in peace. I thought I always saw something crawling in the corner of my eye. When I was asleep, not only did I escape the expectations of the world around me, but I  also escaped the scary physical space that happened to be my home.

Maybe I’m constantly in motion because I’m afraid of being flung back into that space where I was stuck. Where I felt the weight of the world crushing me into stagnancy.

I’m afraid that if I stop, I won’t come back from that place. Maybe this era of motion is just a farce for my true, depressive nature. Or maybe I am afraid of losing the momentum that lets me “accomplish” things. If I slow down or come to a halt, I may become unworthy of the things I desire because, without motion, I won’t be able to prove myself as deserving of those things. This also begs the question, though—why do I need to fulfill things to be valid, to be enough?

In my adulthood, I’ve reconnected with my childlike desire for adventure and fun. But I can’t lie, as a teenager with an ultra-hormonal brain, I wanted nothing more than to just be still. In certain ways, I didn’t have much interest in doing anything—it all felt like too much work. Now I know that I actually get a new chance every day. I want to remove myself from the line of thinking that just because I may relapse into depression one day, that’s it’s a point of no return. But that’s not true.

I will always have the opportunity to be in motion if I so choose. If there’s a day when it is too difficult to get out of that place, that’s okay. I can choose to take the baby steps I am capable of in that moment, or I can take a break. No shame in it. Fortunately, I haven’t been in a depressive spell in quite some time, but I want to have grace for myself if I do enter one of those periods again.

I also think that over time, I have developed better tools to help myself if I enter that dark place. I need to trust that I will wake up and start anew, and that, for every day I wake, I have another chance.

I’m really proud of myself for how I navigated this most recent winter. I was pretty intentional about filling my days with movement (whether that was moving my body through exercise, or spending time with friends) to fight the winter blues. Plus, this was a cold-ass winter that featured multiple snowstorms, so extra props to your girl!

As I get older, I trust myself more and more to take care of myself, but I have grace for the version of V that couldn’t take care of herself well. She was just working with the best that she had. I also have grace for future and present V, who will inevitably make mistakes along the way. I know that at our core, our hearts are pure, and we want to do things that ultimately make us feel happy and fulfilled.

All of this to say, as I grow more into my sun sign (big Aries) with every passing year, it seems like motion becomes more a part of me, and less of something I need to fear. Motion doesn’t always have to be rapid, either. Slow motion is still motion, okay! I am also learning that life is not a race—it is safe for me to take my time. I’m not doing something wrong by not filling all of my waking hours with high velocity. There will be ebbs and flows, and I am making peace with that.