Three years ago, my life was saved by someone who thought no more of what he said than if he had commented on the weather. Three years ago, I was depressed.
Depression is not at all like sadness or grief, which come and go as quickly as morning dew. It is a cold emotion in a cold world, like standing outside in the winter in nothing but underwear. And you can’t move; you’re stuck and everything becomes irrelevant. And there are people—warm and smiling and laughing—but they can’t see you and they can’t help you.
It’s like you can’t see or hear or feel, not the brightness of the sun, nor its warm on your face, nor the song of birds as rosy-fingered dawn paints the eastern horizon with colors of life and love. You are alone, completely and utterly alone.
You are a bug stuck in a rut in the road, life’s wheels forever crushing you—grinding you into the dust. And, like a bug, you know that the best you’ll ever amount to in life is a pest, a nuisance. No one wants you around, no one cares about you. Sitting in that rut you begin to realize that, if they don’t care that you’re alive, they won’t care that you’re dead. You realize the world would be better off if you weren’t in it.
That’s where I was, and that’s where I had been for two long years. If not for those thoughtlessly-spoken words, I would be dead right now for, although at that time my fear of death was still stronger than my will to die, it would only have been a matter of time.
They weren’t even great words, nor kind nor caring nor sympathetic. They were words spoken hurriedly, without any great deal of emotion. Freshman year I was coming out of art and a boy from my Latin class told me I had to go to Certamen because they needed me for the mythology questions. Certamen is a competition for Latin students, which I did not want to attend. I was terrified of people and more so of competitions, but despite this, I agreed. For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, someone needed me. More than that, someone wanted me around!
So March rolled around and I kept my promise. My team took second place and there wasn’t a moment I remember of that day that wasn’t spent laughing. I had been living in a hell of my own creation, and by those few words I realized it.
He is still in my Latin class today, though I sincerely doubt that he remembers those words or, if he does, he doesn’t know of their significance. He saved my life with a comment made in passing, and he doesn’t even know it. Maybe one day he’ll read this.