Brown-out

Woke up in a brown-out, my name for depression. Didn't know right away. Was able to go to the gym. But when I came home, accomplished nothing. Sat on the floor of my bedroom, paralytic. All the leaves are brown, leaves are brown, and the sky is gray. Origin for the term. I think of people all over the world muscling through days like today and worse. Of course, didn't think about them earlier. Just about me. How I hate this. How easy now to forget the part of me that goes frothy about rollerblading. Just the night before, felt sanguine while skating around Lake Union. Have to remind myself that I tend to manage to right myself fairly quickly. But even when dropped into it suddenly, the nature of depression is a feeling of endlessness: there was never a time before it began, and will never be a time after it ends. All the leaves are brown.