I was a teenager when I started to entertain a fantasy. It goes something like this: I am standing on a stage built upon a life of imposing accolades and lavish success, and declared before a thousand captivated eyes: My name is Peter. I am your boss, your colleague, your employee, your partner, your neighbor, and your friend, and I want to tell you my secret. I have depression. I have pandemonium in my brain.
It would be a triumph of sorts: proof that living with major depressive disorder doesn’t proscribe you from ascending to the proverbial pinnacle. The obstinate child scrambled for hope. When he found none, he set out to a make his own. Circumstances, so he felt, had sentenced him to an inconsequential life. He would prove it wrong. Never mind the fact that the pinnacle isn’t where he wants to be.
Nearly 15 years later, I have taken four steps forward and five steps back, still circling the bottom of the pit and nowhere near the stage.
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The past few months have been interesting. Things have fallen apart, but I found a new perspective.
All I want to do is share a story of triumph. Offer consolation to others and to my childhood self that it will get better – I know, because I made it. But I don’t need a stage for that, and I don’t need to wait until I get to where I want to be. My triumph lies not in success and riches, as much as I may aspire to them, in contentment and in serenity, in making peace with myself.
A great delusion of life is that it has a destination, a stability of sorts, a lasting peace, stillness, joy, all that good stuff that I have taken to be conditional on some arbitrary set of attainments. The truth is, all things are transient. We never truly stay still in bliss or despair.
Here’s to finding consolation in small places.
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