My three-week-long taste of the d word

I never liked grey before. I said no to everything grey…until it said yes to me.

My fingers wandered through the cotton sleeves of the crewneck as i tugged it down past my eyes and nose messing up my bangs. After a brief moment of nothingness, my eyes met the light again and grinned in the mirror. I liked it — the crewneck. Odd…grey and crewnecks were never my thing. A couple days of thinking about the sweatshirt made me go for it.

Curiously, it matched everything, even my mood. The only four letters i could think of to describe how i felt were g-r-e-y. I didn’t know what, why, where or when, but i knew grey.

The somewhere between black and white hue enveloped my body and mind. As the crewneck hugged my body, tears escaped the corners of my eyes in a grocery store, the middle of a walk and my office bathroom. Like i said before, i didn’t know why, where or when. Before, I always cried from failure, but now, from nothing. I started to think…

There is nothing in my life for me.

There is nothing to live for.

I’m good for nothing. 

Dying will stop my daily anxieties about making decisions.

Death is inevitable. Everything in life — university, relationships, marriage and children — is a distraction from the inevitable.

Although there were tears, it dawned on me that what i unmistakably felt was nothing — neither happy nor sad. The nothingness made me afraid, and after I talked to my sister about it, she ordered me three self-help books. Although she didn’t make the greyness go away, my sister promised me it would. Pinky-sweared. I knew she was right. Correct me if i’m wrong, but nearly nothing is forever in life — everything ends — and although, typically, this notion appears cynical, it saved my life and gave me a dose of optimism in a time when my mind was chock-full of nothing but pessimism.

About three weeks after meeting the crewneck, I packed it up to go to London — my three months of studying there were about to begin.

Although endings make me sad, and airports always mean the end of something, September 15, i lugged my suitcase behind me and smiled. The thought of living in London made me think positively, and, I want to note, thank god for London for every day from the 15 to today — as i write this sentence — helped erase the greyness.

I never read the books, and, although the books made it to London with me, the depression did not. Of course, every now and then it pops up again, but i think of it as life — the negative balancing my positive.