I've been "home" in this country for 98 days. Christ.
I didn't expect a big culture shock experience. Sure I've heard about it, but I was quasi European going into this whole thing, and I started mourning my Amsterdam even before I left, which definitely prepared me some.
But no one and no thing prepared me for the deep depression I fell into coming home. But if I analyze it, all within the span of barely over a week I left Europe and traveled to America (twice stuck in stress and snowstorms, mind you, on a plane FILLED TO THE BRIM with babies) unpacked, repacked for school, dealt with my boyfriend peeing in my bed and ON me, got to DC, broke up with my boyfriend of 3.5 years, my constant love and lover, on that Monday, first day of classes, and found out he was cheating on me for years. I've found myself, and he's still a child. In Amsterdam I realized I needed a man if I'm going to be in a relationship. But I have to heal first before I even start looking into all that crazy shit.
So within 12 days, my world was completely destroyed and life directed its anus above me, and relieved itself.
No fucking wonder I became so depressed. I was hurt more than I've ever been, I was back in DC and everyone seemed so young and dumb all of a sudden. I didn't have a bike or organic food to make my body feel good, either.
Even so, this depression was the best thing to happen to me. I haven't really been able to write about it before now, but I'm finally out of its scary-ass clutches. Sure, that doesn't mean I don't have sad days. But it's not every day anymore, and the anxiety attacks and panic attacks are over. I can start to feel again. I was eating only spicy food because I couldn't taste. I was drinking a lot of boxed wine and doing a lot of other things which I don't care to mumble about. School didn't matter, class didn't matter. I hadn't been in a "University" setting in 9 months prior to this semester, and it was jarring to put me back in this school.
But out of this constant sadness and constant anger, I've been creating. I composed countless new songs, sang every day and play at least 2 or 3 instruments every day. I've also set up an "art station" in my dining room, and I've been painting a lot. It's fucking fun and fucking soothing and therapeutic and I love that I finally realized how it feels to be an artist. Before I was crafting my art. I was storing up knowledge, I was adding and adding and now I'm finally doing math. And my poetry is the best thing I think out of this breakup/move home. My impossible to get an A in his class poetry professor gave me an A, and said my portfolio was the best he'd read. It was the ego boost I needed. I really fucking needed it. He said that I have natural talent, and that I need to be published and people need to be reading my work.
And it feels great to be able to create like this in my brain's anger factory. You need to be angry; you need that fire to heat the pan and cook delicious art. I was dressing crazy, I was feeling crazy. In January lots of the songs I was writing were "fuck you Russ" songs, and lots of the poetry I was writing were "fuck you Russ" poems, but I'm past that now. Now I can control my anger and mold it better. I'm writing great poems, I'm painting real paintings, I'm writing and singing my own real songs.
And my grades will go down a lot. But it didn't bother me. Because I had to do this, and depression is a real fucking mental health problem. It doesn't just go away. Being a depressed person, and taking the psychology classes that I've been taking, I'm doing my best to treat this "disease" by continuing to make my art, by journaling everything I'm feeling (but you'd have to cut out my tongue and chop off my fingers to stop me from writing every day), I'm starting to use the exercise bike until I find a European style cruiser of my own to ride again. I'm buying foods that I ate in Amsterdam, drinking constant cappuccinos to recreate my experience here.
Anhedonia sucks balls, but I'm starting to feel again. For a while I would go outside in the cold or rain just so I could feel something. I'd pour curry over everything so I could taste something. I'd sing as loud as I could, just to know I still had a throat.
But it's getting better. I'm living in a house for my senior year (finally, a place I can stay for an entire year? without moving? Christ!) in a gorgeous area of DC right by the Cathedral.
I've made the best friends I've ever made in college, and they've helped me heal with constant laughter and constant companionship. Without my flatmates Saba and Cory and Sam, I'd have gone mad.
It's time to do the shit that matters, and right now, it's to learn about what I feel like learning about. If I'm not having a sad day, I'm reading nonfiction, watching documentaries and ted talks, and practicing music for hours. School is on the back burner, because I don't care.
I'm going to take Human Sexuality next semester, as well as Psychology of Music which should both be difficult and so fucking fascinating. I'm looking at grad schools for sex therapy or human sexuality degrees. I'm trying to work at a bike place in DC, and work for some place that doesn't eat my soul.
I'm trying. I did my first open mic, and it felt so amazing to perform for people again. I hadn't felt that stomach bubble of butterfly blooming in my gullet, hadn't felt that nervous release of sympathetic and parasympathetic since I'd performed in high school. And I felt alive again.
If I don't end up being a professional musician, I'll be a sex therapist and help people. Or a sex educator and help people learn about themselves, and about being safe.
Feels good to feel again, kids. Feels really fucking good. I've been raw for so long, my skin callused with hurt. Callused by strings and keys and plucking and singing my heart into pulp. As the saying goes, what hasn't killed me made me stronger. I am made of muscle, I am made of art. I'm creating, because it's all I can do to keep from going mad.
