A reflection of self.

It is 3:00 a.m. Eyes struggle to stay open. Clothes can’t come off fast enough. The bed is cold and repulsive. Arctic winds blow through the windows, because the maintenance man never replaced the weatherproofing. The day’s essence still stains clothes, shoes, hats, and the room itself. But as the bed begins to warm from lying in it, the eyes become stale from dry tears. This is the moment of infection.

Depression, loneliness, and complete hopelessness are symptoms of this disease. Each and every one of us fall victim, because the period of incubation is a lifetime. The coming of age is normally when the onslaught begins. Broken promises of weekends with Dad, mom picking you up late from school, and missing gifts from the Christmas lists are a child’s symptoms. Standing in front of the theater waiting for your date at midnight so you could see the 9 o’clock show are an adolescent’s symptoms. But once you approach adulthood, these symptoms start to multiply and diversify. What you once would face days, weeks, and maybe months apart in sorrow now visits you on a daily basis. Family members pass, bank accounts hit zero, car batteries drain, and the rain drops always find your forehead when you do not have an umbrella. The pantries are emptier when no one loves you, or at least it feels that way. So, as the germ grows and spreads, the edge of the bed invites you and your iPod. Otis Redding sings posthumously, offering no remorse for your state of being, only insight and empathy. Even if you could make it to orbit, far away from the aches and pains of living, the solar winds would burn you. They would cast you back down to Misery.

No doctor has a cure to this infliction against man. These are the essence of growth and resistance to failure. Being taken to the brink of extermination, in mind and will, is the facilitating force for this disease. The Blues have no season or location. They move freely in and through every one of us. They hold a reverence only compared to Death’s, for we know they approach us, we know that they will bring pain, but we can only wait and prepare. The Blues are a unavoidable, a hated necessity.