Another Monumental Day

I'm reminded somewhat ironically of a Christmas Eve long ago after which I also felt everything had changed. I was horribly depressed, cripplingly so, and I couldn't even leave the house to buy my family gifts. I was meant to go to my aunt's house, as we do every year, in only a few hours, but I could not bring myself to do anything.

I was so anxious my heart was racing and I agonizingly wanted nothing more than to crawl into my bed and sleep for a few hours, my eyelids already drooping with emotional taxation. This was, as I recall, the first or second Christmas after my brother had passed away, which was probably the major thematic root for my desire to remain permanently in my hermitage.

I called my mother and explained to her the situation, described the presents I had meant to purchase for my father and the rest of my family. She was driving home from work, and her advice to me was to take a Xanax and have a nap. She told me that she would go to the stores and pick up the gifts I'd so miserably failed at procuring. This was, as I recall, the first or second Christmas after her oldest son had passed away.

I took her advice, a stifling burden delivered from upon me, and slept as I have often wished to sleep since. When I awoke everything was different. The world was serene and peaceful and I felt that I had found my place in it. I felt for the first time since I could remember that everything would be all right, and that no, that wasn't just something that our parents told us to shield us from the painful and blasphemous reality of life. It was truth.

I went to my aunt's house that evening a changed man. I was happy and grounded, with just the right mix of ambition and contentment. It lasted for almost five months, and sadly, now that I have begun to recall this period of my life, it occurs to me that during this time I found it exceptionally difficult to write the dark, existential screenplay I had begun in my black and brilliant depression.