Dear Squidge,
I remember once, we were talking about your depression and I asked you what you get like. This was pretty early on, I think. You said you get sort of quiet, sort of broody. I said I hadn’t seen you like that before and you said I wouldn’t have, because I keep it away.
You’ve been quiet lately. In a way that I feel guilty hanging around you, like I’m doing something wrong. I worry that I’m not only failing to keep it away, I’m causing it. I don’t feel like I’m enough for you, sometimes, that I’m too boring and you’re not challenged. That you should have a fun girlfriend, not a girlfriend who crashes on the couch the second she gets home.
I mean, really. I don’t go with you when you go out with mates. We go out for dinner just the two of us, and that’s nice, but your friends must be wondering if I even exist anymore. I wonder if I’m the sadsack, lying around with a headache and being too tired to do anything all the time. All. The time. And that it’s sucking the life out of you.
You just lost your job. Money is getting low. But there have been hard times before and you’ve let me share them. I had to ask you to, but you used to let me in. Should I ask again? Do I pry?
I feel like I ask you how you are about a thousand times a day. It’s how we start our conversations, now. You say you’re fine. Just feeling a bit low.
I used to be able to pick you up.
So. So, what? Is it me? Is it us? Is it is it isitisit?
K.
