I am no therapist, so when I talk about depression I talk about experience–both what I have seen and what I have and continue to go through. For me depression is about burden. It is about carrying around fears and lies and worries. It is about living in my failures and turning my limitations into prison bars that I stare through. It is also about things. The more things I have, the more I am weighed down by those things, and that too is a form of depression. Relief is as simple and as terrifying as getting rid of those things.
I’m starting with the garage. My plan is to make a pile of all of the things that I own but don’t actually need or use even on a semi regular basis. These are the things that are kept for ‘just in case’ and largely sentimental purpose. Some of that should remain, so long as the sentiments shared are meaningful and of real lasting value. Six or so years ago I switched jobs and the folks who were my family at the old job gave me a wine subscription. I still have half a dozen bottles of that wine that I haven’t opened. It is sentimental, but do I need 6 bottles I don’t truly expect to drink? Do I need a leather jacket from the 90’s I’ll never wear again? Carrying around these memories clutters the garage and the heart in a way that suborns regret, and regret is the path to depression.
Today I’m going to spend some hours in the garage cleaning out my history and making space for my future.