The sense of nothing

I remember I visited my parents one summer in Hawaii. I bought a one way ticket.

My dad knew I was depressed when he picked me up from the airport. It was in the way he said, “Hi pumpkin.” His voice lingering in the air. His octave dropping into a whisper on the last syllable. The softness making me want to cry. The depression hadn’t caught up to me. Like some kind of flu, I wasn’t aware I had it until I tried breathing for the first time.

Fast forward. We are in Australia for the week. On night three, I feel it and suddenly I have to leave. I huddle under my covers, souring the web for a plane ticket back to North Carolina. “What are you doing?” My mom, light sleeper and slightly nocturnal, is staring at me through the white hotel sheets. My phone a small moon in our dark hotel room. My mind is on a race track of chaos. He’s not answering my texts. He’s not talking to me. I think he’s ended things. “I have to go back home.” I tell my mom flatly. “To do what? Right now? Go to sleep and we can figure it out later.” My mom pulls her eye mask over her eyes. I can hear the Bible being read to her through her headphones as she rolls over. Jesus wept. I put my phone down. Pick it back up and look. No messages. I put it down. I try to summon sleep.

The trip ends. We get back to Hawaii. He breaks up with me over the phone. He’s on break at work. I can here someone throwing trash into the dumpster in the background. I have a flashback of us laughing in the hallway together. I put my phone down. The reality of the situation quickly erasing my nostalgia. The family dog stares at me as if they know a meltdown is about to explode out of my body.

I cry for 5 days. They only time I stop crying is for dinner time so my parents don’t ask. But they know. No one talks except the silverware. My mom starts turning the TV on when we eat. My dad starts finding stories to tell. Anything to try and muffle the silent scream I’m letting out with each chew of the food I can no longer taste.

A year later.

I’m sitting in my apartment. Listening to the kids scream at the pool. The sound of crickets stirring in the heat. I never thought I would leave from my parents house and have any sort of peace afterwards. But here I am. Breathing. Each moment in life always feels like the final one, until the next moment comes. And then you have to decide. I have leaned into the fact that most things are solved by going to sleep.