Depression and Music

The room is black in the early morning hours while I rise from my bedroom and walk out into the hallway. It is cream white and the hallway (like the rest of the house) has a smell of sage from my wife burning her Sage Incense the night before that has wafted through the rest of the house. As I enter the living room I notice the remaining stick sticking out of the long wooden holder. I open the cabinet where the remaining sage sticks were, I grab and light one. Then, as I turn toward the table across from me, I grab from the bag a handful of Sage and place it in a conch shell, light it and begin to smudge and cleanse my home after smudging myself first.

Coming back into the cream-colored living room, I grab my phone off the charger and open my meditation app and do some guided meditation for the morning. I will do another later at night to finish relaxing me before sleep. With my headphones in my ears I relax on the computer chair and allow myself to be swept away in enjoyment. The guide speaks softly yet clearly so the directions are easy to follow and the voice is so soothing. It allows for a great start to the day.

I hear my 0600 alarm go off and I gather myself and rise from the chair to go to my son’s room to wake him for school. We have coffee and talk for a few. Things are smooth and I am not getting all bothered and frustrated as I normally would if I had not started this new lifestyle. I made a promise to my family that I would change so that they did not have to deal with angry me all the time.

Music is not playing yet, though some mornings there is a lot of classic rock playing. We love the new stuff, but nothing beats the songs or storytelling of the bands from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. We sit there on the overly large computer chair and talk for a few. At 0700 he leaves and I am yet again alone. The sadness enters my mind, grips it like a pair of tongs and then the tongs place my head into a vice grip which grinds down on my head till I play something to stop it, sing a little.

“See a new beginning rise behind the sun, I can never catch up no matter how fast I run.”

A loud burst of “We are the Champions” plays in my head as I realize that despite the pain and lost feeling I have, Queen was there. I requested Queen on the Echo Dot and Alexa was playing some of them. The overjoyed feeling elates me as I burst out in song and anticipate the next…” Fat Bottom Girls” plays and I continue to belt it out and I silence myself a quarter way through the song because I remember my wife and daughter are sleeping.

“Sometimes hate is not enough to burn this all to ashes..”

I hear that line from a Marilyn Manson song and it stops me…

“We’re running to the edge of the world…and I don’t know if it ends today.”

The loneliness is an appalling felling, but I transfer to this every day. Some days are different than others, but this day, the fires of my past haunt me and I cannot break free. Watching the death of so many and yet so few, the haunting realization that I am here and not there is yet another and I long for both.

“Can anybody find me Somebody to Love…”

What?

There we go, sing. Bring yourself from this rut and not listen to the inner turmoil that presents itself as a monster that is trying to corrupt you.

I sing.

I smile at my family as the remaining two rise from the ashes of their beds and stretch. Hearing them brought me great comfort and joy, the knowledge that I am not alone. I can make it for them, be there for them, my life for them. I sing.

I sing Queen then switch to Zeppelin. The storytellers of my youth.

I write, write while listening to music, write like I have never written before and pray one day someone will see me. Try to make a legacy for my children.

“I’m going to California…”

“Hey, Hey, Momma! See the way you move…”

A smile and meaningful laughter emerge behind my throat. I enter an area that has made me safe, made me secure.