Fight

Last night I was sad. I felt it coming on early in the day, that sad, sad feeling that everything is wrong, that any other perspective is nothing but an illusion, that I am defective—that I have an internal defect that makes me this way, makes me sad and wrong eternally.

I fought back.

"I'm sad because I'm sad," I said, "and it doesn't mean anything. Tomorrow may be different. Five minutes from now may be different."

Today IS different. Not happy, not sad, though I've had moments of each. But yesterday—all that—I know it was about Life of Pi, about the hyena killing the zebra by tearing open its belly and eating its guts from the inside. I know it was about the hyena beheading Orange Juice, the orangutan that was rescued as an infant and raised together with Pi like a sibling. I know it was about Pi stranded on that 26-foot lifeboat, terrorized by the hyena and the tiger, and about feeling sorry for them, for Pi and especially for the animals, who didn't ask to be put on the ship, who weren't willingly moving to their new zoo homes when the ship sank.

I know its just a story. Its all just a story--you, me, the whole thing.

Yesterday I was sad. Really, really sad. The kind of sad that wants to transform itself into despair. "I'm sad because I'm sad," I said. "And it doesn't mean anything."

I fought back.