When I Die

Waking Up

So life begins. You wake up one day and there's light; and the warm comfort of your mother's womb is no longer there. The first thing they teach you to do when you're born is cry. If you don't cry, you're considered different, strange; you're an abnormality. They make you cry then; push things down your throat so that you can vomit your first tears.

The first lesson you learn when you're born is that this world makes you cry. That it's never going to be a joyride. And if you think it is going to be, boy are you mistaken. They'll make you cry, sooner or later.

You learn that crying's the only way you can tell people you want something. You cry for your milk. you cry for a hug. When mommy's riding you around the park, you see that boy flying the model airplane and you cry because you want to fly it.

You cry when you get your first bruise. When you fall down off that bicycle the first time, you don't stop and wonder about how amazingand different the whole experience of physical pain is; you cry.

But sometimes in life, there comes a point where the tears simply refuse to come. When the hurt runs so deep that it seeps away your tears. You just can't cry anymore. Your heart does, of course, but you can't. And then, the very first lesson life gave you come rushing back: If you don't cry, you're strange.

You begin to think you've gone insane. Toys in the attic. Finally tripped over to Disneyland. And you begin living your life pretending you're insane. You withdraw from everyone you know. You withdraw from everyone you love because love hurts; sometime or the other, love burns.

I don't know if I can describe it much better than this, but everything I said above is how I define myself. Everything I said above for me defines depression.

Right now, like most of humanity, my life sucks.
It's boring.
It's windy.
It's long.
It's dry.

It's cold.
It's empty.
It's frozen.

And no matter how hard I try to get out of this state of mind, this web, I just can't.

Sometimes things change, something good happens, and you begin to wonder that maybe you will get out of this web. A stranger, an angel, saves you from killing yourself. The change lasts for some time and then it dies a toxic death. You begin to wish that the stranger hadn't saved you and you'd died.

You study. You study something you hate.You waste your life doing something you never for the life of you wanted to do. You waste your life studying.

You begin wondering about things. You think about God. You pray, you pray for change. You pray for love. You pray for happiness. And when your prayers go unheard, you question. Maybe God really did exist up there sometime in the AGO. The time before before. Now he's gone hiking, maybe.

You lose faith. You deny His word. You lose your sleep. You lose your identity.

You look at this world with weary old eyes. And you see filth. You see misery. And mostly, you see death.

You wonder why things happen. You wonder why everything you believed in was a lie. You wonder why you always lose the ones you love the most. Mostly, you wonder about how terribly lonely you are.

At night, when you can't sleep, you think of happier worlds. You think of love that isn't unrequited or love that dies with seperation. You think of the things you like the most; you think of doing them.

You think of never having to worry about money. You think of being a musician. You think of being a singer. Then Life knocks on the door to your mindwarp and says, "hello, laddybuck; you can't ever be any of those things. Why? Well, because you gotta earn money, that's why. Plus, you lost that chance anyway. Rock's dead, amigo. Why not get a nice educational degree and get a nice job? Isn't it comforting to think of fixed hours and fixed salaries than thinking of stupid singing? And moreover, you ain't gonna be a musician ever. Or do anything you love. Know why? I don't want you to be happy. Geddit? I want you to remember lesson number 1. So keep crying; and until next time, Sayonara!"

You come to this journal to share your thoughts with the whole world. You think it's time someone knew how messed up your life really is. And when you finish writing your first entry, you think it's so full of crybaby whines, you wonder if it's worth the effort. You wonder if it's worth the time of the ones who will read it.

And you wonder if their reading it will change things.

In the end, you always get around to the same point. Changing things. Changing things for the better.

But change always happens for the worse.

You die. You die and no one gives a damn. On your deathbed, you wonder if your life was worth it. And a second before you exhale the last time, you realize it wasn't.