Feeling Blue: The Cave

In the week following New Years I found I'd gotten myself into a bit of a pickle. Sat, cocooned in blankets, with the same pajamas I'd been wearing for who knows how long, smelling like I hadn't showered in days.. because I hadn't showered in days. Every item of clothing I owned was out of the cupboards, strewn about on the floor, and dirty. It had been at least 48 hours since I'd seen or spoken to a flesh and blood real life person. The only food left, a jar of peanut-butter. My transformation complete, I was finally ready to live out the rest of the winter as a hibernating bear.

Except niggling at the back of my mind was the thorny knowledge that I wasn't happy, and everything was not okay. The month before Christmas my long-term girlfriend broke up with me - thankfully before I'd bought a present, but unfortunately after we booked flights to see my family over the holidays*.

From the beginning, this relationship had been a bit of an outlier for me. My usual pattern is to fall deeply in lust with someone, so much so that I unconsciously change who I am to fit what I think they'd like, then put them up on a pedestal, ignoring their faults and painting them perfection itself. The one.

At some point, sometimes a mere week or two later, the shine wears off and I remember who I am, and see who they are... and my over-puritanical mind goes, - "Are you really gonna marry her though?"

The answer has almost always been no, and I kinda just ghost out of there with as little mess as possible.

In this case, things were different. It was the first time I said I love you, and she said it back, and I thought it was true for both of us. It was my first time getting jealous, needy, emotionally vulnerable, all that couple-y stuff. It was the first time I started planning a two person future instead of looking for a route out when things got serious. So of course, it is fitting that it ended up being my first time being broken up with.

To double down on self loathing, I'd let myself believe things were going well. I was fully intending on finding work in Japan next year and making things work here. A plan. A plan for the future. Almost as rare for me as having a long-term girlfriend. Losing both at the same time.. well it's safe to say I was not dealing with it well. I fell into the black hole.

I have said to a lot of people over the years, "Sorry, I fell into the black hole." It sometimes happens that for all intensive purposes, I disappear from  the face of the earth for a few days. Usually this means defaulting on plans, not answering their messages, then appearing 3 days later with a guilty grin on my face. But "black hole" isn't quite right. A black hole is a big, powerful, cosmic, ripping force. Where I actually go, there's no movement, no action. It's life on mute.

Maybe a more accurate metaphor then, is that I tuck my knees up and crawl into the cave. For those of you with healthy coping mechanisms, let me explain.

The Cave

It goes like this.
You see a problem in the distance. It would usually be nothing, but every once in a while the brain goes all Alice-in-wonderland syndrome-y about your problems. They stretch and grow to monstrous sizes, you getting smaller and smaller in comparison, until you can't imagine where to make the first cut. There it stands, a humongous thing in the distance, inevitable yet impassable. Well, it's sometimes one humongous problem. Other times, it's a million little ones stacked up on top of each other in an enormous trench-coat.

No one believes they can climb a mountain when they see it from far away. So you crawl into the cave. Bury your head. Sit and wait with your eyes closed, hoping it will pass you on by.

Occasionally, you peek round the mouth of the cave, just a sliver to check, but all you catch is a glimpse of shadows, big things in the distance. More shadows. Each time more numerous and even more impossibly large, so you close your eyes, and find anything to avoid thinking. Thinking about the shadows. Thinking about the big things in the distance, immovable and cold.

To the point where you've got no food left. Well no food that doesn't need cooking. Cooking takes pre-planning and organisation and action. It requires you to get up from where you're sat, eyes closed, waiting for it all to pass. So you rummage through the kitchen for anything remotely edible and end up eating spaghetti with ketchup on top. Peanut-butter with a spoon. A whole pack of omiyage you were fully intending on bringing to school and giving to your teachers.**

Reminders from the outside world keep poking their head through the window, carried on the wings of Hermes.*** On your phone is 10 unread messages.  You can't open then, because then you'd have to act, open your eyes and get up. You'd have to answer, because that's what people expect. More shadows, bigger and bigger. So you keep on distracting yourself with familiar things. Nothing new, nothing moving forwards.

The game you've played for years.
The music you've heard a million times.

Old shows, where you know how it starts and how it ends. As each joke is set up, you laugh, reassured because you've heard the punchline before. Its static. It can't surprise you. No new shadows. No new calls to action. It's three in the morning. Looks like you've ruined tomorrow too. Good. There's no way you can do anything tomorrow, with so little sleep. You'll have to stay in the cave, hidden away. It may sound like a sad place to be, but its not. Sadness is just another one of those things casting shadows in the distance. See, you crawled into the cave to avoid feeling. To escape it. The calm from the storm outside.

Wrapped in Cotton

For a lot of people this wouldn't work. I don't know whether it's duty, or strength on their part, but the outside world calls to them too strongly. They cannot keep their head buried for long, it only reminds them of what has to be done, like covering a burning coal with a cotton scarf. For me though it is perfect. I have some issues with attention anyway, so at times like these I just put something flashy on a screen in front of me... and I'm away. Youtube, to reddit, to game, to video, to movie, and back again. With that much variety, there's no time to be thinking, much less feel.

And then it just stretches on and on until... Its all boring. I binge until I'm sick of it. Until my revulsion with watching one more mindless one hour youtube compilation video outweighs how afraid I am of the humongous thing on the horizon.

Things have to change. No one can remain in the cave forever. The mountains come ever closer, as sure as night follows day. Even we, with our head firmly thrust in the earth can feel it. You cannot stand still. Time pushes you forward, into the mountains, onto the climb. And if your legs falter, and you trip, it passes you by. It has places to be, regardless of whether you are ready for the ascent.

I open eyes and look to the mountains. I am absolutely exhausted from doing absolutely nothing.

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Its been so long since I wrote last, and I'm afraid I've forgotten how to be funny, so sorry if missed some jokes this time.

This post doesn't have a witty roundness to it, because I don't know how it finishes yet. Hopefully I'll add a part II in the coming months, but I'll make no promises as I'm known to break them when it comes to writing. Rest assured though, that I'm feeling much better.

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* Thankfully she didn't come out to Malaysia, but I was in a terrible mood the whole time, and got in a fight with my Mum cause I was pushing everyone away, and ended up crying a bunch. Sorry for almost ruining Christmas. I love you guys.

** In Japan, it is traditional to bring a small, individually wrapped cake or snack called omiyage to school after you take paid leave. It's a nice gesture to the people who have covered for you and picked up your slack while you've been gone. They do take it too far though. A co-worker missed some work to go to their father's funeral, and brought in strawberry tarts to apologise.

*** Even though the messages go unread for days at a time, I am eternally grateful to the people who reach out to me when I disappear. To the angels of mine who go out of their way to include me, no matter how unresponsive and unreachable I may seem - thank you for being brilliant people.