Inheritance
I have spent my life disguising my depression while seeing its face in so many different forms.
My father was the first face I recognized.
Nature versus nurture.
Was it in his DNA? Or was it because his own father was taken from him at such a young age, during a time of conflict.
I remember him as one of the most intelligent and well read men I have ever known. A published poet who always seemed to have a line, a story, some wild comparison ready.
Whether it was Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sylvia Plath, calling me Tom Sawyer when I was causing trouble, or his love for Keanu Reeves taking revenge because, they killed his dog.
He was a character. And more often than not, the funniest man in the room.
But I remember the darkness that followed him at the same time.
The childhood wounds that remained. The ones that never really closed.
And how he tried to quiet them with a drink.
His particular favorite was Johnnie Walker Red.
My friend, on the other hand, wore his mask quietly.
He was kind.
The kind of person we all know. The kind of person who would not hurt a fly.
If anyone ever started something with him, you would immediately attack like a guard dog because you knew he definitely held no fault in the situation.
That kind of soul.
This is the kind of person you wish the best for, even if you have not spoken in a while, because they were always good to you.
You assume people like that make it through.
Until one day, he did not.
I remember hearing the news and immediately telling my Lit Professor that I had to leave for the day.
He told me he hoped I would feel better soon.
I cried the entire ride home.
Quietly.
Tears falling down my face and pooling into my seat, with no sound behind them.
My friend asked if I was going to be okay.
I told him I was tired.
That is always the answer, is it not.
Just tired.
I think about it sometimes, but I have never admitted my depression out loud to anyone.
It is just something I sit with.
In my group of friends, I am usually the one making plans, telling jokes, dragging everyone’s lazy asses out to the most random places just to make sure we are living.
I laugh hard.
I smile easy.
I have made life look like the easiest thing in the world.
But the worst part of the night is when it ends.
When the fun is gone.
When everyone goes home.
Because then I am left alone with whatever has been waiting for me in the dark.
And I never know where to go after that.
I think about my friends now.
The ones quietly drinking more.
The ones laughing louder than before.
The ones saying “I'm good” a little too quickly.
I think about her grief.
Her mother gone too soon.
Her mind turning against itself when she stops trying to hold it together.
The pain she swears that no one can understand.
I think about my father.
I think about my friend.
I think about my lover.
I think about myself.
And I wonder how much of this is inherited.
I would be lying if I said I have never thought about disappearing.
I have.
More than once.
Not because I wanted death, but because sometimes I wanted silence.
An end to whatever sits in the dark waiting for me when everyone goes home.
But every time my mind wanders there, I see the explosion it would leave behind.
My mother losing her son.
The one I loved, learning too late why I carried so much.
My siblings losing their brother.
My nieces and nephews growing up with stories instead of memories.
My friends losing the one who always made them laugh without ever knowing how my life felt underneath it all.
That kind of pain does not end.
It spreads.
It gets inherited.
And I refuse to make the people I love carry what I could not.
Maybe that is what we really inherit.
Not money.
Not land.
Not legacy.
Just pain that is too heavy to carry and too personal to put down.