This Is Why I'm Like This: The First Time Depression Cost Me A Gig

      I'm not going to bore you with the last three years. Suffice it to say that the stages of grief suck hard, and adding depression to it was and is devastating. Particularly when you are actively avoiding facing the fact that you are depressed.
       It's not new, I'm not unique. I'm just sharing.
       The depression commercials all point out that it's physical. I have never experienced any physical symptoms other than the standard wish to sleep all of the time. I was not aware, until this last year, that when you hit true bottom, indifference is there to welcome you, and it can impact your memory.
       And you really don't care.
       Let's also add changing my teaching assignment from theatre to lang arts, where I am so far out of my comfort zone I can't even see it from here.
       Last year I taught and directed for two different theatre companies. I was able to keep schedules for classes in Boulder, rehearsals and classes in Denver and Highlands Ranch while supporting Harp's pregnancy and G's post college transition year all in line. I even managed to rip up the carpet in the bedroom and get us started on the ReFi, which went through, finally, in December.
        Now add a house that is being ripped up and purged and bathrooms renovated to the list.
        How're you doing?
        I was doing OK until this weekend, when I managed to completely screw up a directing gig this summer. One of the only things keeping me from slipping completely away was botched by me. I own it, nobody else.
       Turns out when you are depressed and indifferent, you don't really read your contract as thoroughly as you should. And you have no choice but to own it, and lose the gig, because there are consequences for being unprofessional.
        Which is likely fine, as I have acknowledged this year that teaching full time lang arts plus gigging is really starting to weigh on me. I thought it was my age, or the mileage, or both. But it turns out it's the depression.
        I had to step back yesterday, after saying "I'm not OK," to three people whilst owning my mistake, and look at the last three years. The gigging, I thought, was keeping me from sliding into utter madness, which is one perspective,"on the one hand". On the other hand, it could be that I was using it to avoid dealing with the deep, empty hole that losing my theatre left, but also keeps me from really caring. About anything.
        Including losing the gig.
        The girls have been after me to take time off, to heal, but I am ornery and pigheaded, as Edward Albee once wrote in a letter of rec. He also wrote that I cry a lot, which was untrue. Maybe I need to cry a lot. Maybe that would help?
        I'm just sharing. I don't want to bother anyone, but if reading this sounds familiar to you and where you are, I just want you to know you aren't alone. There are more of us out there battling depression than not, and all the Facebook re-posting of memes is not helping.
        And that, my friends, is that. I also suspect that is why I have struggled to rediscover my voice as a writer.
        It is also why I sliced my hand on a paper cutter last week. Fourteen years running a theatre, table saws, jigsaws, electrics, drills: accident free. But I'm a lang arts teacher now, and I have had my first work injury. From a paper cutter. Because I am distracted, always, and fuzzy and working harder than ever to hide how low I am from my colleagues.
        But I gotta say, they know something is wrong. I  mean, I walked down the hall to the office with my hand cleanly sliced open, looking into my hand at the muscle, blood running down my arm, and arrived to calmly tell the principal "I'm gonna need stitches."
       To be fair, the rumor in the building is that I was unnervingly calm about the whole thing, and that my hand was "butchered". So I got that going for me.
        On one hand, I seem to be fine, just fine, stop looking at me.
        On the other hand, I have six stitches.