THANKING GOD FOR MY DEPRESSION

‘We really should thank god for your depression, Simon. 
It is an amazing gift. 
Showing you how to live. 
Imploring you to live authentically.’

These were the words of Antoine.
A deeply wise and gentle man, 
in his 81st year of life,
and his 31st on the road.

Aged 50,
living an affluent life in the Netherlands,
his wife left him for a friend,
– something he is ‘incredibly grateful for’ -
and he took a new path.

I found him
– or rather the Camino provided him –
in the final few kilometres of my pilgrimage to Santiago.

His van was behind a sign which read,
‘do you have one more question?’

I had many.

Across an hour we explored my heart’s most frequent queries.

Love,
loss,
hope,
desire,
trust,
pain, 
regret,
purpose.

It is a conversation etched in my memory.

A conversation that I felt destined to have,
on a road that my intuition begged me to walk.

I used to view my depression as a thankless interloper.
An unwelcome intruder who one day found the keys,
and then decided to pitch-up on their whim.

With time,
and practice,
and wisdom,
my lens has changed.

I understand it now to be a lighthouse.
Warning me off the cliffs.
Moving me towards calmer waters.

For the first thirty years of my life I made ‘rational’ decisions.

I turned to the jury of my mind.
Composed of fragile thinking,
learned behaviour, 
social expectation,
and inherited understanding.

Invariably, I endeavoured to do the ‘right’ thing.

All the while my lighthouse,
– my body –
was whirring.
At first quietly,
eventually violently.

I would move,
and consume,
and smile,
and work,
and exercise.

Each an act to numb it,
to knock it down the road.

But it would not rest,
because rest,
– that nirvana of ease – 
is found only by heeding it.

Along the way to Santiago,
– and my winding road to self –
I was taught this,
and I am grateful for it.

Here, 
– with the first whisperings of Spring –
I wonder:
what light are you ignoring?