Depression Diary - Log III

The past is a gaping hole, I heard somewhere. I seem to have mocked it back then. But that was also a thing of the past. Now I am living in the past and I realize that whoever wrote it or whoever said it or whoever did whatever to it, it was correct. I don’t think I would have read it anywhere. Can’t recall the time when I loved reading books. Come on! Who am I kidding? I don’t even enjoy reading the newspaper. I wonder how I end up writing in this godforsaken diary? And more than that, how can the doctor think he will ever read it? But then he is being paid to read it and I am not being paid to write it. It seems that you can ask anyone to do whatever you want them to do by putting appropriate price to it. Heard that is how bounty works too.

But then I am wandering again. Me thinks that every time I sit down to start with something definitive in  my mind to write about, I seem to always wander away from it. I am beginning to be convinced that there is something wrong in my head somewhere. Perhaps that is why the doctor asked me to start writing anyway? Maybe he can see through the entire content and find hidden meanings and patterns? He seems to have a lot of degrees. Reminds me of myself dropping out of college. Past again. Life, it seems, has a wonderful way of reminding you of all the time that you screwed up something somewhere. What has become of all the good things that happen in Life? Perhaps they have gone down in the drain, just the way the world seems to be going down in the drain.

So after a lot of thinking I thought of writing a little about my past. Who knows it might even help the doctor? But then I am not sure if I will ever show it to the doctor. The only reason I recollect that it was the doctor who asked me to start writing is because last week I went to him and he asked me about it. I became so terribly scared that I said that I had not started to write anything in it. He drew up a sympathetic face and nodded and said that things like these always take time. I think it was his professional way of telling me to go to hell. See? I am wandering again.

Last night when I was sitting and doing nothing (like all the times) I thought I saw a shadow creep around in the darkness. Naturally, I was scared. It was a shadow from the past. One that I definitely would recognize anywhere anytime. As I sat thinking what to do, it sprung out of the darkness and stood in front of me. It was the ghost of my wife. Or the ghost of my once used to be wife. Or the ghost of my once used to be college girlfriend. A ghost anyway. Her name was Sarah. I met her in the sophomore year. She was the most fun loving person I had ever met. Quite my opposite. We seemed to get along well. She talked and chirped while I nodded my assent and listened to her and the likes. Soon we were dating. Things seemed to be going well when I made the greatest mistake of my Life. Dropped out of college. She was still supportive. By then we were living together. She finished college and got a job. By then I had also found a job at a bakery serving baked breads to customers. The job sucked. The boss sucked. The salary sucked. But she was there with me and so I was able to live through it.

Then we got married and had a daughter. She was the best thing that ever happened to me. But like all my happiness in life, it was short lived. One fine day I return back home and we end up having a big huge argument. Over what? Ha ha! You would laugh when I tell you that! We fought over a bottle of jam! She wasn’t able to get a fresh one to open. I tried but even I couldn’t get it to open. She made a joke about it. I had had a lousy day and I got angry. And then she got angry. And though she was the most prettiest of all the darlings in the world, when she got angry there was no going past her. We fought, argued, screamed, shouted and I think I threw the bottle and it broke. She suddenly froze. Stopped fighting. Just froze. Ten minutes later she was packing her bag. I begged and pleaded and did everything I could but to no avail. It seemed that she had simply turned away from me. She left me for good.

We got in touch after an year or so again. She was married to someone else. I continued to meet my daughter occasionally. But she seemed to shrink away from me every single time I met her. Eventually she told me that she did not want to meet me again. I said fine. What else was I supposed to say anyway? Later I heard that Sarah died of cancer. Heard she had taken up smoking and had a sad end. No one even called me for the funeral.

Her ghost came to me yesterday. It was scary. Her eyes were hollowed out and she looked like a skeleton. Her face was gone completely. There was burnt skin instead of the smooth olive skin that I once remembered. It stood looking at me and then simply disappeared. I know it sound ridiculous, me writing of anything like this. But it seemed that her coming was what I needed to retrace some of my steps of the past. Now I am sitting and I am tired. Tired of thinking, tired of writing. Tired of wondering. Sleep is nowhere in sight. I think I will just sit around. Perhaps turn off the lights as well. Let the darkness embrace me with its claw like hands. Perhaps Sarah will come to me again? Like she was…like I remember her…

- U.E

05:05 PM, Indira Gandhi International Airport (Delhi)

November 4, 2012