The computer program

17. Pills

Seven years later.

The sun was beautiful as it was filtered through the crowns of the pine trees.

I was surrounded by the pines, and birds. Completely and utterly surrounded by them. Sometimes, I heard the rustling of leaves, and instead of turning my head to try and figure out where the sound came from, I would close my eyes, try to imagine what kind of animal it was. Another bird? A snake? A squirrel? If I focussed, I could hear the complete absence of cars, the absence as strong a sound as the presence of it would be, perhaps even stronger. This far out on the countryside, there was no traffic.

It cleansed my heart.

All parts of if it except the deepest ones that nothing could reach, because they housed my most precious memories, the most precious parts of my life.

I came here most weekends and took a long walk in the forest. For two hours, I would just walk, cleaning my mind, straining my muscles with the ups and downs of the paths. Sometimes, I would walk along the main path, sometimes smaller ones that went over roots and stones. If I passed something beautiful, like a stream or a bed of flowers, I would not take out my phone to take a picture but sit down for a while and breathe. In the end, I would always snack on something, go back to my car, and drive home.

I passed the big playground where some children played, closely watched over by their parents. I felt a pang in my heart then, a pang of longing. I still made myself smile, as if trying not to offend an invisible someone by displaying distraught as I saw children.

As I walked out of the forest and out onto the fields of the countryside, towards the small parking lot where I had parked my Tesla, earned by years in the IT industry, I found my smiled turned genuine as I turned my face towards the sun. I got into the driver's seat, let my car purr away while listening to silence as music saddened me nowadays.

I drove for an hour before I came home.

But the forest, with its high pine trees and birds, was still in my heart as I went to my bathroom and showered, doing my weekly  wash of my hair, so long now it reached my waist.

I swallowed my pills and went to bed.

Life was okay. 

I was torn.

You know those people who had everything? Literally everything? Money. Looks. A loving partner. The family of their dreams. The home of their dreams. Yet they would complain about feeling depressed.

On one hand, they angered me. How could anyone who had everything I had ever dreamed of be so unhappy? It was so frightfully unfair.

But on the other hand, one part of me believed that of course, they should be allowed to be depressed just as anyone.

Because I had everything someone else had ever dreamed of. A job. A career. An apartment that I owned. My health. My friends. Some people had none of that.

Yet, I was depressed. Not just depressed, the feeling, but an actual label. Look, everyone! A person with actual depression! He's not just depressed, he has depression!

I tried to give myself some space from those thoughts about not having a reason to be depressed because I had so much, telling myself that with that logic, only the unluckiest person on earth would be allowed to be sad or there would always be someone who had it worse than you, but it was impossible. The thoughts were incredibly intrusive.