There were once two girls, named
“Anxiety” and
“Depression.”

Anxiety was always buzzing, she seemed
filled to the brim with paranoia.
As she walked down the street,
people would touch her shoulder and say,
“Don’t worry so much.”

Over time, it became so repetitive that
she drowned out every word.
But it didn’t fix the buzzing inside of her like
an angry beehive, constantly whispering
sweet nothings so sweet they left
a bad aftertaste.

Eventually, Anxiety could not step
out of her doorway without feeling the
buzzing:
Youcannottrustyoucannotloveyoucannotwinyoucannotcopeyoucannotinteractyoucannot
fearyoucannotbreakyoucannotsleepyoucannotbreathe
You cannot be safe.

Depression was always low, she was
a flat line on a hospital monitor, still living.
As she sat on her bedroom floor,
the tears that longed to spill over never did,
leaving her empty.

Over time, she stopped trying to cry
and even simple things were hard.
Getting out of bed was trouble because she was
leaden, beaten down, didn’t care enough to
move along, move along, move along,
to do anything.

Eventually, Depression was so wearied
that the anvil weight on her chest felt
normal:
Nothingmattersnothingmattersnothingmattersnothingmattersnothingmatters
nothingmattersnothingmattersnothingmattersnothingmattersnothingmatters
Nothing changes.


The two girls lived their lives in
separation.
Anxiety felt the ghostly, tainted touches of
everyone she passed.
Depression felt nothing, just the empty bubble of
her own existence.

One day, Depression felt vibrations on the sides
of her bubble.
The sudden feeling gave her such a start that
she looked up
and saw Anxiety.

One day, Anxiety felt a strange solemnity
calming her beehive.
The pleasant break made her so intrigued that
she followed it
and found Depression.

The two girls became close, finding solace
in the opposition of the other.
Because
depression was water, and
anxiety was fire, and
together they found some sort of
balance.

But then they got too close and too heated and they realized that this
was more than friendship.
By then, it was too late, they were already separated by so many miles of self-loathing they could cross the grand canyon.

And Depression didn’t know how to
connect, she didn’t know how to
react, she didn’t know what to
do except to try to stay distant and close at the
same time.

And Anxiety was afraid of
falling, of simply
clinging, of
driving Depression away and losing her
anchor.

But these things didn’t matter because
they had already begun to fit like
puzzle pieces.
And in that moment they began to switch roles.

Depression woke up and was
terrified
to learn that she could breathe fire.
She was shocked to find
that she had grown armor and begun
to value a treasure.

Anxiety woke up and was
surprised
to feel that she was flowing like water.
She was stunned to find
that she was skipping stones on herself
to feel placid.

And both of them looked in the mirror and
saw the other.
And both of them looked at their lives
and saw the connection.
And both of them mourned that they were
so lost, so broken, so very, very far
from each other.

And at night they felt a stinging loss and ache in their chests that only
exaggerated their namesakes.
And Anxiety couldn’t breathe and Depression couldn’t move and neither could stand the fact that everything was so hard and they were so cracked down the middle and the nights were so lonely and

Somewhere in the middle of all this,
Anxiety began to love Depression.
Not just through beating hearts and awkward kisses,
but through the warmest hugs she had
ever received and the kindest things
that had ever been said to her.

And so, in the middle of the night,
while the beating songs in her head said
loneliness, but not really,
she wrote a long poem to try to describe
how she felt.

Because, really, how could she leave it un-said?
Because, really, how better to tell someone thank you?

In the middle of the night, she wrote that poem.
She cried and she
cried and she
cried and she
cried and she poured her entire self into
just a few words.

*****

“Dear Depression,

Thank you.
Thank you so much for being my friend.
We are so broken but we were so alone and now we’re not and
I can feel myself coming together
every second.
You are a fire-breathing dragon and
I am a quiet lake with a reflection of the moon
on my surface.
You have not made me whole.
You have made me better, infinitely better and
you have fixed things in me I thought would be broken
forever.
I am so afraid. I am so afraid of the world. I am so afraid of scars. I am so afraid of knives. I am so afraid of what those things can do and what I can do with them. I am so afraid of myself. I am so afraid of everything. I am so afraid of this poem.
I am afraid of losing you.
But there are some things that have to be said so now I’m saying them
in the only way I know how.
Thank you, thank you,
Thank you, I love everything about you.
You deserve so much and get so little.
I hope maybe I’ve helped to crack your bubble but if not,
I’ll keep trying, every day,
I’ll try.

Love,
Anxiety.”

******

There were once two girls, named
“Anxiety” and
“Depression.”
They were not perfect, not at all.
They were messed up in so many ways, too many to name.
However, it was the kind of messed up
that’s perfect, in itself.
It’s the kind of messed up that
can sometimes be softened by
a single hug
from
Someone Very Important To You.