I Made My Depression a Dragon
Here’s the thing: I love free time. As I wrote last week, I now have mountains of it. I am considering it a blessing not so much in disguise and taking full advantage to get shit done I’ve been putting off for months.
It is also a curse.
Did I make like 45 appointments including one for headshots as well as churn out thousands of words, submit a short story to five publications, and look for jobs and extra work all in the past week and two days?
Yes, yes I did.
Did I also wake up several of those mornings gripped in fear that I would sit and do nothing all day? That I had TOO much free time before me to focus and get it done? That I would fail once again at finding a job to pay bills and also pursue my dreams?
Yes, yes I did.
In 2017, I succumbed to the dragon of depression that was curled up in the depths of my stomach. It growled and called to me and I let it put me in its cave of treasures and guard me from any help, any relief, any rescue.
This dragon calls to me again. It is curled up within me, smoke pouring out of its tendrils, a little green horned thing that is just waiting for me to make the wrong step. If I listen to it, I could easily fall into its trap and be stuck in its lair once again. Right?
Wrong. Quite wrong. This time isn’t the same. This isn’t a defeat, it is an opening. A window. A rare chance where my energy and inner magic is bubbling and I am not writing this as a lie but as I truth. I got a ton of shit done in the 9 weekdays since I lost my job. Legit EVERYTHING on my To Do list that I kept copying and pasting week after week with only a few checked off boxes. Years ago, I watched the entire series of Grey’s Anatomy again. This round, I’ve turned on the TV maybe twice during the day. I have successfully avoided becoming the dragon’s treasure.
Better than that, I became my own dragon.
I like to think of life in fairy tales, in case that comes as a shock to anyone who is a new reader. Fairy tales give me hope, teach me lessons, remind me of so much we tend to lose as we grow up. My depression dragon is always there but this time, I’m my own version of a dragon. One ready to fly over the lair and miss the trap completely. I don’t expect this to always work. Depression doesn’t go away that easily. But I made a choice that changed me into this dragon.
I listened to my heart. I came back to where I belong, my home, my city. I’m with my tribe, my chosen family, and my museums and buildings and books and plays. I have a forest full of doors to choose from, not just the one that led to a world I never quite fit into. I can now look back and reflect on it and see the person I was and how much I’ve grown and changed. I write my main character in my novel and see the similarities I’ve placed in her: a girl who feels she doesn’t belong in the world around her and discovers it is because she isn’t from there. Yet even in the world she was born in, expectations are put on her and she isn’t sure of the next right step. I’m back in the world that I was born in, that made me who I am, and I’m unsure of what the next right thing is. But at least I am here.
Dragons will always be there, laying in wait. While I hope someday to befriend my dragon, I’ll let her lie there for now. Free time can be a blessing and a curse. But I’m proud of myself for making the most of it. I’m proud of myself for listening to my own dragon-heart. Who knows what else I can check off?
