a-momento-of-old

[a-momento-of-old]

The problem I have with depression is that, even by the same people trying to destigmatize it, no one ever seems to truly understand what it’s like to go through.

I’m not suicidal, but I will lay in my bed all day until it’s time to go to work because I have no interest in doing literally anything.

I’m not suicidal, but I will sleep for 12-14 hours a day because what else am I supposed to do when I feel tired?

I’m not suicidal, but that doesn’t mean anything to you. You hear “depression” and think about everything everyone has told you about people with it. You listen to everyone else, but you don’t hear me telling you what I need.

I understand that you’re trying to help, that you’re worried about me and want me to feel better, but I can see the way you look at me when you think I can’t see you. And that hurts like hell.

I live through this because every once in a while color finally bursts through the gray and it brings me to tears every time. Because sometimes I get to see just how beautiful the world is. I know it is hard to push through when you feel nothing, but there is color and beauty and perfection out there, and that’s a joy that I wouldn’t dare miss.

[a-momento-of-old]

Reading is one of my great passions in life. Civilizations could rise and fall built on the back of books I’ve read (or bought and left on a shelf). But there were times it wasn’t easy.

In grade school I could borrow books from the library, either the local community library or the school library. During the summer my mom would walk with me and my siblings across town every week so we could get new books.

In middle school I truly started to suffer from a resurgence of a tumor I had for a long while. There was a lot less reading. Almost no trips to the library. There was always more to do and I was always drowning in the sea of it; I barely passed 8th grade.

High school was not too different. I was closer to an adult than I ever was and I could tell. My depression bit me in the ass, I started working a job 6 days a week, and I was still struggling with the massive amount of homework I had to do. But I found more time to read. Weekends weren’t too busy where I worked so I would bring a book in and read a few chapters.

Then COVID came. I brought in a copy of Stephen King’s “Pet Semetary” and went through over 200 pages while only having one customer. It was then that I realized how much of a standstill life would come to.

I’m an adult now, in my mid-twenties, and I’ve read more these past few years than I ever did. I don’t work where I once did, but that’s ok, they were great people and I’m glad to have known them and worked with them.

Reading books has always been a pass time that I enjoy, that I thrive on.

[a-momento-of-old]

[a-momento-of-old]

Railroad Cars

Growing up I could never stand being in the car for a long period of time. It wasn’t anything to do with my lack of interest, but everything to do with motion sickness. Anything longer than a fifteen minute car trip? Need some Dramamine.

There was an exception to this, though not a good one.

If we ever stopped at a train track because a train was going by, I had to close my eyes. The repetitive motion of the rail cars going by made me nauseas.

I work a job now that requires me to deal with trains on an almost nightly basis. Though now they aren’t blaring by, the motion of their cars sickening, but are slow enough that I can watch them. And watch them I do.

I’ve found dozens of pieces of art graffitied on those rail cars. I don’t know who made it, where they are from, or how much it had changed from when it was made to when I see it. Yet they’re always striking.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s still some awful stuff on there. I see people’s name that are barely legible, neo-Nazi bullshit, and so much random pieces that look like they’re from a child who just discovered crayons.

Every now and then though, one stands out enough to catch my attention. I don’t know who these artists are, but I love them, because they make art.

[a-momento-of-old]

Hearing

I became unilaterally deaf several years ago. The result of a tumor eating it’s way through my head; I have no words to express that pain. I had several surgeries in an attempt to remove it without making me deaf. Then, it came back so near my skull that there was only one option.

I laid in the hospital bed, the doctor told me that there was technically a chance that I wouldn’t loose my hearing, and that gave me hope. When I woke up, I thought the lack of hearing was from all the bandages stuffed against my ear. I adjusted the volume of the TV to try and hear, but I couldn’t.

I tried to keep up that hope. When I got home and was able to remove those bandages, I had to face reality. I was deaf.

Years later I was given the chance to have a bone-anchored hearing aid (BAHA). I sat in the audiologists office with my mom and dad across from me. This headband affixed with one of the hearing aids was wrapped around my head. It clicked on, and I could hear a robotic approximation of everything around me.

I was quiet, my dad was stoic as ever, and my mom cried.

Now, I don’t often wear my hearing aid. I’m deaf. It’s hard. I accept that. But I have people around me that are willing to accommodate my choice to not hear. Because that’s what is it to me - a choice. And not many can say that.

I wore my hearing aid to a dinner with my parents the other day. Everything seemed so loud. They talked in a voice louder than an inside voice but quieter than a shout. They didn’t know they were doing it.

Do I miss hearing? Occasionally. I wish I could hear the sounds my cat makes when I come home, I wish I could hear the wind blowing through trees without the sound of static, I wish that I could enjoy music as I once did.

But I’m older now. I’m deaf. And it’s enough for me.

[a-momento-of-old]

Ghosts

Call of Duty: Ghosts is a game that came out in 2014 alongside an Eminem song titled “Survival”. I consider both to be pieces of art. Ghosts, as I’ll now call it, was the last Call of Duty game that didn’t feel weighed down too much with the corporate greed those games are so often attributed with now.

It was also the last Call of Duty game that I had genuine fun playing. Even now I still go back to it from time to time. The servers are empty and no matches can be found, but I can load up campaign and play a fun story; I can play multiplayer with AI opponents; or I can load myself into Extinction - a new game mode only for Ghosts - and have some of the most fun I’ve ever had.

My closest friend and I would spend hours playing those modes. We’d challenge each other to play a certain way or to use a certain weapon. There were countless nights that we’d stay up playing, sneaking downstairs to get sodas at two in the morning, and never getting off it until we were so utterly exhausted that we couldn’t keep our eyes open.

When my tumor came back and nearly killed me, we played that game. When we left for vacation on an island, I brought my PlayStation 3 and Ghosts. When we were bored of everything else, we played Ghosts.

That friend and I no longer talk. I know that I still play it. It’s a permanent feature on my PlayStation 5.

Now when I game I look for stories, or solid multiplayer, or fun game modes. But none of it’s the same as it was in those summer days in that stuffy upstairs bedroom playing Ghosts while on a much too old bunk bed.

I lament the years that I remember because as they grow more distant their meanings grow more heavy.