Burning Beneath

Hang on here with me — it’s going to be a long one, and not a happy one either. But maybe it’s honest enough to matter.

I’ve been wrestling with depression and anxiety for months now. Not the kind that you can tidy up with a quote or a walk or a bath, but the kind that feels like a ghost pressing on my chest in the middle of the night, then dragging its fingers through every small decision I try to make in the daylight.

Imagine waking up exhausted because your dreams won’t leave you alone, because your mind won’t let you rest until 4 AM, and when you finally do drift off for a couple of hours, the weight is still waiting for you when you open your eyes again.

And then it’s there — in the stupidest battles that shouldn’t even be battles. Should I just wash the damn cup and make coffee at home? Or should I go spend $1.90 at Tim Hortons and buy it instead? It’s not the money — it’s the weight of the choice. It’s the guilt trip that follows either way: you’re wasting money, you’re wasting time, you’re not doing it right, you’re lazy, you’re careless, you’re… what? I don’t even know anymore.

And here’s the strangest part: I love to build things. I always have. My mind is full of ideas — van conversions, backyard fire pits, pergolas, benches, concrete slabs, brick barbeque stations. I did it before: I turned my backyard into a place that helped me dig out of the dark for a while. I laid tiles, built an arch, placed benches on orange pebbles, lit the nights with strings of warm lights. I made it beautiful.

Now it’s gone — buried under weeds and grass and a weariness I can’t seem to pull up by the roots. And my van — it’s waiting for me too. A half hour job to bolt down a fridge has been waiting for four months. I know it would take fifteen minutes. My brain knows it. My heart wants it. And yet I sit here, staring at the bolt, at the weeds, at the cup in the sink, at the road to Tim Hortons — and I feel stuck, like I’m underwater, like I’m moving through wet cement.

People like to say, Just do it. But they don’t see the fight behind the smallest step. They don’t feel how loud the mind can get when you try to lift one finger toward living the way you want to live. They don’t see how it’s not laziness — it’s a war inside your skull that leaves you too tired to stand.

And yet I’m still here. I still want it. That means something, doesn’t it?

I don’t know what the answer is yet. Maybe the answer is in talking about it. Maybe it’s in letting someone see the mess as it really is. Maybe it’s in picking up the drill even if it takes all day to pick it up. Maybe it’s in forgiving myself for the cup, the coffee, the weeds, the bolt, the dream that didn’t sleep.

Maybe it’s in trusting that the same person who built that beautiful backyard is still here — buried under some weeds of their own, maybe, but not gone.

There must be a solution. And maybe I’m not alone in looking for it.