Losing

Here it comes.

I can feel the shift in air pressure, the slight sense of movement beneath my feet, something akilter, something sliding, slippiing, giving way.

I know what' s happening. I'm intimately acquainted with the process. This should all be old hat, routine, no big deal.

So I do what I know needs to be done. I make sure I'm eating right. I set up an exercise routine. I resume my church attendance. I email old friends. I call my sister. I re-read my best-loved books. I make love to my husband. Carefully, consciously, mindfully, I erect the barricades, shore up the defences, solidify the walls.

But it's all pointless. I do know that. How could I not know that? Depression doesn't mount a frontal assault. It's not an attacking army. It's more like a poisonous gas; it floats over and gently, insidiously, unstoppably wends its way down; it curls up in the junctures; it lingers; it accumulates; it deadens.

It wins.