I believe the things I want aren't so uncommon. I want the feeling of meaningful connection with other people. I want to feel like the things I do each day have a purpose. That they lead to something better, something beautiful.

DC is a city that is hard on beauty. Hard on dreams. It is a city of cold reality. Of scheming. Of working your connections. Of knowing what can be done and what cannot be done. Pragmatism is the rule.

But pragmatism means saying no so much. Pragmatism means keeping people at a distance, keeping passion contained. It means wearing suits and having endless catered Cosi lunch meetings. It's exhausting. It is draining.

I come home from work at the end of the day, and I cannot maintain the focus to read. I come home at the end of the day and all I can do is watch tv shows on netflix instant. I have no energy to cook. No energy to write.

And I am tired because I am once again depressed. I tricked myself, last year, into thinking that I was done with this. And I am so, so angry. I am furious because I see now that this depression played a role in things with Alex falling apart. He could not make me happy, no matter what he did. But what he didn't see and what I didn't see because I did not want it to be true that this dark shadow had returned again, was that I would not have been happy anyway.

But I didn't see. And he didn't see. And I lost him.

Most people, I think, have trouble understanding why Virginia Woolf laid down in the water with rocks in her pocket. It is terrifying to realize that I do. You lose things to mental illness that you regret, that you are sad and sorry about, even after the spell is over. The losing is hard. So very hard.

But I did not fill my pockets with rocks and wade into the Potomac. I called and called and called until someone could see me. I have pretty light pink pills that will make me feel better. And I will never, ever allow myself to lose something precious to the shadows in my mind again.