So. Let's get this straight and in the clear. Why did I make this? I made it for me. I'm writing this for myself because by now, I know that I enjoy writing. And by now, I've become accustomed to share what I write. So why am I sharing this? Why am I sitting here, right now, feeling the need to share what I'm thinking about myself?

Is it sympathy? No. No, in fact, I don't want sympathy. If anything, this winter has shown me something. And it hasn't even shown me anything new. It's shown me what I've forgotten. I don't need or want sympathy because looking for sympathy will destroy you. You'll crave that feeling of being noticed, cared for, and paid attention to. But you'll always come back down to the reality, that in the end, you're the one doing it alone. And it will always be that way.

Is it attention? Yes and no. I'm used to sharing my thoughts now. It's an automatic reaction that's come with loosening my own reservations and constrictions. So why am I sharing this, with everybody? Why not just talk to a friend in private? Why not just keep my personal business in the background like I used to?

The sad fact is, the company I keep is in no shape to hear what I have to say. The company I keep are in the same boat I am. Wound up in their busy lives, wound up and constricted in their problems and woes and the last thing they need, is to listen to ramblings from my head. And most of all, half of them can never, ever respond.

How do you approach someone who's just emptied what's really on their mind, and they've shown you something ugly? How do you reconcile them? You don't. You can't. And it hurts me. I search for someone to listen and talk back to me but the reality is, I will never find that. I will never find anybody who can say anything back to me and fix things with speech because the ugly truth is, I have to go through with all of this alone.

So I'm writing. I'm writing because I'm in pain and I have no other way to set it loose.

I'm not even fighting my treatments anymore. It's like they're a part of my life now. It's like waking up, miserable, and tired, is normal. Eating shitty food, and losing weight because you don't want to eat or do anything is normal. It's so normal, that it's not even there anymore. It's not a worry. It's not a bother.

But I am fighting my depression. I'm trying. And what's horrible is that I know I'm depressed. And it seems sort of redundant doesn't it? If you know that you're depressed, then shouldn't you be consciously able to curb it?

No.

I have mood swings now. And I don't even see myself slip into them. And some mornings, I wake up angry. I wake up sad. People start talking to me and I'm inches away from telling them to be quiet because I don't want to hear a word from them. I don't want to hear them talk and I don't want to be around anybody or any noise.

And I don't know how they don't see it. I look in the mirror and I can see it on my face. It's right there in how tired my eyes look and my mouth slanting down into a natural frown because I've spent more hours of my life frowning than smiling.

I can't smile anymore. Not by myself. Around a friend, or a family member, I can laugh and smile. And then it dies. When they're gone, it dies. It whithers and collapses in on itself and it dies. And that's how I know I'm depressed. Because everything is passing me by.

I don't know what day it is. I don't care. I can't remember anything other than a few days back. And everything is just coasting on by and I'm here. And for little moments, something normal comes back to me. A smile. A laugh. And then it fades, dies, and pulls me down with it.

And I'm fighting it. Talking to anybody who will listen because I've changed. I'm more open now. I've even talked to the doctor. And he can't put me on anything because I'm already on too much. And that's my life isn't it? Fighting. There's always trouble coming over the hill. Something bad. Something nasty. Something you'll have no choice but to go through or fix because you have to.

Some days I sit down with people in my restaurant. A group of older men in their 50's and 60's. Dropouts. Workers. People like me. And I realize how much I must look like them. I am young but at the same time I feel old. Feel like I've seen too many bad things. Just like the 60 year old who looks like he's been in more fights than you can count on two hands. Just like the 50 year old who looks tired because he works and he never stops because he's supporting a family on his shoulders that was dropped on him when their father died and their mother didn't care.

I saved my brother in law's life on Monday. He got stuck, out on the roads. In -54 weather. You might ask, was it celcius or farenhiet? It doesn't matter at that point because it's the same. He got stuck out on the roads any my sister called to tell me he wasn't home.

So I went out there, and I saved him. Pulled him out and we went about our business. I do that because I care for my family and because I believe that I can do my best here for them when they need somebody. I'm intelligent to some degree. But I can't function in a city. I don't enjoy society and what it has to offer me because I want to achieve my dreams by building them myself.

I stay here because one day, if I'm still alive to see it, my mother will die and I will inherit her restaurant. My sister's older husband will die, and she'll need someone to back her up all the way. And I will. And my little niece will need a father figure, someone she can trust because she no longer has a father.

I will never give up. No matter how miserable I am I will not lay down and let this claim me.

But all the same every day I'm slipping. My friends can't and won't back me up because they can't. Everybody has lives to live and this one is mine. I search for a singular friend out here I can grow close to but I realize that it will never happen.

When I stare out at the older men who I sit with and call company, fighters, workers, dropouts. They're alone. They always have been.

It's a discmforting thought. Always being able to talk to friends across the internet that makes the world small but only enough so that you can talk. But that's my life isn't it? Bullshit. Doesn't mean I'll give up.

But I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I don't know where I'm going or how I can get there. I wake up and I don't want to move. I go through my day, weak, and tired, and there's nothing. Nothing but this feeling hanging over me all the time. And in little moments, in brief little moments when I have my head on straight, I can be happy. I can think straight. I can fight.

But they whither, flicker, and then finally die like a sputtering candle. I'm going to keep going though. It's all I've ever done. I've tried a lot. And a lot hasn't worked. And maybe, after I'm done writing this, another mood will roll around.

And I'll collapse. I'll fall deeper down the hole and there isn't anything or anybody that can or will help me but myself.

Every one of you people here.

No matter who you are, good or bad, asshole or other.

You don't know how much you stand to lose and I hope none of you ever have to ever go through this.