We're leaving on a trip; why am I depressed?

We're counting down the days we when we leave for Spain and North Africa. Doing all the little errands, paying off the Amex so we can put more on it for more frequent flier miles for future trips, buying presents for the people we'll be meeting for the first time, putting finishing touches on our itinerary, which basically amounts to when do we leave Spain for North Africa; Sue and I are very loose.

There's something about traveling, in the leaving, that makes me a bit sad, though. I've noticed it all my life, and I'm aware of it, the same way I'm now aware of the letdown that I'll have when a play that I'm in closes. I know the drop is coming and I'm prepared for it. It's like being depressed in the spring. Everyone thinks you're supposed to be so happy in the spring, just like you should be so happy when you're leaving on a trip. But I get depressed in the spring, just as I've learned so many other people do, and yes, I've read about people, serious travel writers, who have identified the depression that occurs in leaving.

And for anyone who thinks I'm overly sensitive, you know what you can do. I'm so tired of people--usually ones who are thick and dense as a block of wood who experience life with all the vigor of a sea slug, telling me how I should or shouldn't experience life.

It's all in the leaving, and guilt that I'm doing something really nice for myself, a problem I've had all my life thinking that I really don't deserve nice things. (Try growing up poor in the working class; it isn't all a Matt Damon movie.) There's the guilt that I'm leaving behind responsibilities (for awhile, at least) that may need my attention.

It's awfully decadent to be traveling in this economy, isn't it? Even though Sue and I live so frugally in order to travel, and pretty much backpack wherever we go. It's the life we want to live, and it's the life we set out to live. Still, there are all the shoulds: I should be saving my money. I should be spending my money on something more practical or saving it for an emergency. I should be concentrating on looking for permanent work or even a really good contract. Even the play I'm in makes me guilty because last night the cast and director met for the first time and it's a really tight group of people, and I'm leaving and we could be rehearsing when I'm away and I want to do a really good job for the director who I really like, and I don't want to let my cast members down, whom I like and have a lot of respect for.

It's all in the leaving. And I learned a long time ago, on my first really big trip, that you can't look at it that you're leaving, but that you're going somewhere. Never look back (and never look down, either!) But look to where you're heading, and you'll do fine.

George Harrison: Beware of Darkness

Watch out now, take care
Beware of falling swingers
Dropping all around you
The pain that often mingles
In your fingertips
Beware of darkness

Watch out now, take care
Beware of the thoughts that linger
Winding up inside your head
The hopelessness around you
In the dead of night

Beware of sadness
It can hit you
It can hurt you
Make you sore and what is more
That is not what you are here for

Watch out now, take care
Beware of soft shoe shufflers
Dancing down the sidewalks
As each unconscious sufferer
Wanders aimlessly
Beware of maya

Watch out now, take care
Beware of greedy leaders
They take you where you should not go
While weeping atlas cedars
They just want to grow, grow and grow
Beware of darkness (beware of darkness)

Depression: a logical reaction to society

There's blue, down, down in the dumps, unhappy, sad, melancholy, low spirits, doldrums, dejected, gloomy, glum, wan, mopey, down in the mouth, morose, mournful, weighed down...the list goes on.

We have as many names for depression, in all its myriad forms, as the Eskimos have for snow (fluffy, granular, icy...) I think for anyone who has lived to a certain age in our society, the only logical response is some form of depression. Anyone who can cheerfully go through a full day after the age of say, 35, is either a blooming idiot or heavily medicated.

The world is beautiful; I'm depressed

This is not coming on the heals of the report that Massachusetts Governor Duval Patrick’s wife, Diane, is “suffering” from depression. First, why is a person always “suffering” from depression? The verb is “depressed.” The woman is depressed. Or maybe not. Depression is a catch-all term that I think is a logical reaction to modern society. Given everything that we have to deal with today, I think if a person isn’t depressed, at least at some point in their life, then there’s something wrong with them.

It’s an oxymoron to say someone is feeling depressed. Depression, really, is the lack of feeling.

Like the Eskimos supposedly have something like 20 words for that all-important element of their environment, snow, we have a blue-million words for the concept of depression. Down. Blue. The Dumps. A few more from the Microsoft thesaurus: Despair. Gloominess. Misery. Hopelessness. Melancholy. Dejection. Again, though, you can feel all that. You can be gloomy and still get out of bed. Depression, man — real depression — means getting out of bed in the morning and making a bowl of corn flakes seems like climbing a mountain.

People generally can be depressed because of a chemical imbalance, or because of outside influences in their lives. And their depression can spike at certain times of the year. Everyone knows about the spike around the Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday season. You’re supposed to feel happy and jolly, and darn it, you just don’t, and you feel bad that you don’t. Like there’s something wrong with you. Like you're some kind of freak.

What people don’t realize is that springtime is an even bigger spike than the holiday season, mainly because it's unnoticed. I remember reading a government report about this, crowing about the discovery as if the scientists had just found another planet. It's like Columbus discovering America when there were people living there all along. There had been people living this all along, too. We could have saved a lot of tax dollars if someone would have just asked them.

The reason is really simple.During spring, the world is wakening up from the long winter. The first really good spring day is so joyful, so optimistic, the universe itself is saying there is hope and joy all around, and darn it, once again, the depressed person just doesn’t feel it. Again, the depression spikes. There could be anger because the person wishes for the umpteenth time in their life that just once they could be just like everyone else. It’s just not fair, it seems.