It's a strange thing to transition from being a ratbag young adult into an actual adult person. My life right now is amorphous, and I exist in a place that feels about as close to limbo as one could imagine. Lately I've been craving the feeling that you get when you return home after a long journey; that one that feels like relief, comfort and safety flooding your system all at once.
It's hard to pinpoint exactly when that feeling stopped coming to me. The thing about my depression is that it often rears its head without me even noticing, slowly consuming me until it can no longer be ignored. It demands to be acknowledged. Suddenly, I'm a greasy-haired girl who been so dibilitatingly empty that she hasn't showered in two weeks. Each time, I let my depression engross me, and then I'm left scrambling; to apologise to neglected friends, to finally call back my mum, to take responsibility for my life once more. Repeat the ordeal every month, and that's how I have been choosing to live for almost four years. I have wasted huge chunks of time, without even realising. Now I'm 23, an adult, with nothing to show for it but constant attempts to try and restart my life.
To be honest, I think that relief-comfort-safety feeling left when the concept of 'adulthood' first approached. In early 2016 when I left Wellington, my mum asked me to move to Tauranga so that she could look after me. I laughed in her face. Why would Tauranga be any better than Christchurch? My friends live here, my dad lives here, I'm enrolling into the University of Canterbury; I would have nothing except her if I were to move up North. Over the years, she repeatedly asked me to move to Tauranga and each time I shot her down, utterly convinced that living in Christchurch—my home—was somehow going to fix my depression. I slowly shook off these childish ideals and aspirations as my depression simmered on, unchecked. Finishing university was one of those aspirations, as was getting an adult job. Expectations I had for my friends and family were lowered, then dropped entirely. The reassurance that 'home' existed slowly left too.
Unsurprisingly, my depression has continued unabated, in spite of all the reasons I gave my mum to stay here. My friends had their own lives to worry about. My dad is a busy man that lives an hour away from me. I dropped out of university. Fast forward to this year, during an especially hysterical breakdown, it clicked. As I told my mum that I didn't think I was strong enough to keep living anymore, she told me again: "There is nothing for you in Christchurch." I gave it three years to prove itself as my home, and it failed over and over. And throughout the last three years, I failed to recognise the disservice I was doing myself. I wasn't being an adult, I was just wasting time.
Finally, we reach the point of this post. Finally, I agreed. I need to move up to Tauranga. Christchurch is no longer my home, and I need to move on. I don't want to be childish, but I can't help but hope that it's where I'll find that relief-comfort-safety again. I'm ready to try and find it.
It's hard to pinpoint exactly when that feeling stopped coming to me. The thing about my depression is that it often rears its head without me even noticing, slowly consuming me until it can no longer be ignored. It demands to be acknowledged. Suddenly, I'm a greasy-haired girl who been so dibilitatingly empty that she hasn't showered in two weeks. Each time, I let my depression engross me, and then I'm left scrambling; to apologise to neglected friends, to finally call back my mum, to take responsibility for my life once more. Repeat the ordeal every month, and that's how I have been choosing to live for almost four years. I have wasted huge chunks of time, without even realising. Now I'm 23, an adult, with nothing to show for it but constant attempts to try and restart my life.
To be honest, I think that relief-comfort-safety feeling left when the concept of 'adulthood' first approached. In early 2016 when I left Wellington, my mum asked me to move to Tauranga so that she could look after me. I laughed in her face. Why would Tauranga be any better than Christchurch? My friends live here, my dad lives here, I'm enrolling into the University of Canterbury; I would have nothing except her if I were to move up North. Over the years, she repeatedly asked me to move to Tauranga and each time I shot her down, utterly convinced that living in Christchurch—my home—was somehow going to fix my depression. I slowly shook off these childish ideals and aspirations as my depression simmered on, unchecked. Finishing university was one of those aspirations, as was getting an adult job. Expectations I had for my friends and family were lowered, then dropped entirely. The reassurance that 'home' existed slowly left too.
Unsurprisingly, my depression has continued unabated, in spite of all the reasons I gave my mum to stay here. My friends had their own lives to worry about. My dad is a busy man that lives an hour away from me. I dropped out of university. Fast forward to this year, during an especially hysterical breakdown, it clicked. As I told my mum that I didn't think I was strong enough to keep living anymore, she told me again: "There is nothing for you in Christchurch." I gave it three years to prove itself as my home, and it failed over and over. And throughout the last three years, I failed to recognise the disservice I was doing myself. I wasn't being an adult, I was just wasting time.
Finally, we reach the point of this post. Finally, I agreed. I need to move up to Tauranga. Christchurch is no longer my home, and I need to move on. I don't want to be childish, but I can't help but hope that it's where I'll find that relief-comfort-safety again. I'm ready to try and find it.