Trapped in the potholes of cliches

Perhaps that's the writer's curse of depression: everything is defined by cliches...accurate, true, and utterly devoid of any individual slant. 

Boring and trite, they sum up the roller coaster days and meaningless minutes without actually saying anything new, without owning my own letters, expressing to the world "this is me." Instead i'll just point you toward the book of quotes on the shelf or the cute posters on the wall and instruct you to read.

Then again, who am I writing for? 

I write because it's what I know to do, because it stills the ceaseless motion of cleaning and to-do lists and text-tapping thumbs.  I write because otherwise i lose my breath among unsaid words, suffocating on stomped down phrases, traveling through life on autopilot unable to calm the tangled panic that blooms.

And alas, if it's cliches I must start with, so be it.

Prompts of not "counting the minutes but making every minute count" only induce guilt and having the "power to create my own reality" leaves me labled as a failure.  I can't "act as-if" or "fake it til I make it". I can't "turn my frown upside down" or "put on my big girl underpants" to create a life unknown. 

There's no frame of reference.  No starting point.  No picture in the photo banks of my mind that says - there, that's what I want, that was a life worth living, that is what I need to get back to.  I literally have to create the wheel of an actual life; one spent living and not merely surviving.  And that looks like an insurmountable mountain, too icy to trek alone, too steep to manage on weary legs.

The other option is to stop with the trying, the experiments, the trials, the new ideas and innovative plans.  To continue trudging along, filling hours with tasks and errands, jealous of a grandmother living on borrowed time.  But treading water isn't my forte.  It seems my constitution offers me two choices - forward or back.

I choose back.  I'm too tired, too hopeless to start over yet again, too worn out to try to find my footing only to be blamed when the outcome falls short of a miracle.

And yet, I look into the eyes of those who inexplicably love me and don't have the heart to break the news. Despite it all, i care more about them than myself, care more about what they want.  

What do I want?

I don't even know.  That piece of my brain that should think independently and seems to function for all other adults as they practice self-determination has gone missing, vanquished by too many strong voices and institutions dictating what to think, how to act, when to breath.

So left to the quiet corners of my mind, I get lost and hunker down, overwhelmed by the maze toward an unseen light.  Perhaps someone will find me who knows the answer. 

Perhaps that someone is me.  

Perhaps.