After my post yesterday, I began to ask myself the question: Why is being home all day so depressing?
It’s a nice home. It has a balcony and when it’s sunny out, nothing is more soothing than sitting out there, thinking, writing, reading and writing some more.
Being home also means that I can multitask, which gives me an odd (but very real) high. Laundry runs while I’m at the computer and sometimes I take 15 minute cleaning/organizing breaks. Even 15 minute napping breaks.
So what is it that makes me so depressed?
When I was a part of starting The Urban Hive last year, my friend Robin was one of our early members (and contest winner). In her words, having a workspace that wasn’t at home gave her a sense of legitimacy with her work. Legitimacy. She felt justified in her pursuit of a career as a literary consultant and editor.
Do I need legitimacy? Maybe. But I don’t feel like I need to justify how I spend my time.
What is it then?
Loneliness? Some days I don’t speak out loud until 6 p.m. when my boyfriend and I talk about what to have for dinner. But loneliness is more about a longing for deep personal connection through relationships.
So, isolation, then? Just a lack of people and company? People to talk to?
Absence of people definitely contributes to the depression. But it’s more than that. I think it has more to do with the absence of sharing. There’s no one for me to tell about what I’m working on. No one to share ideas and bounce them around. No one to give me feed back. No one knows where I am, what I’m doing. No one knows that I sometimes get stuck staring out the window. Or that one day last week I couldn’t force myself to get out of bed before 10:30 a.m.
And since no one’s around, does any one even care? Does it really matter that I put my pajama’s back on after I shower? Or that I wear my slippers all day? Or that sometimes I eat ice cream for lunch? I don’t really, but if I did, does it matter? To whom? If those things don’t matter, then my work must not matter. Because, who is there to care about my work or what I have to say?
It’s like I’m in hiding. Like I’m not taking the risk of sharing my work with the world.