Twenty-Four
The very first melancholy episode I can remember experiencing occurred when I was ten. It was a simple moment of darkness, of feeling inexplicably down. Given it arrived with little surprise, things must’ve been happening earlier that normalised this for me, although I don’t recall anything specific. These episodes got worse through my teens, along with periods of agitation, punctuated by the occasional manic burst of energy. But I learned to mask it all as best as I could, although that wasn’t always easy. These things made it hard to fit in, hard to connect, hard to be like everybody else. Everything was an act. I looked like one of…
Fifteen
Work holds a monthly event, an open mic night for creatives. I fill in for BEST FRIEND (who used to emcee) to the best of my ability – work was her business, she was the boss, and the host of all functions. As an event, participants feel the warmth of the occasion – not just the physical warmth of the work studio, but also the emotional and spiritual warmth that was so much the foundation of what BEST FRIEND (and her husband) built for their business. But there’s this irreconcilable reality that exists: what was (when she was emcee) and what is (not so much me as emcee, but the…