I walked on the beach last night with a friend. It was a stunning evening. The stars looked like holes to heaven. The warm foamy water lapped my feet. I followed the tracks of mama loggerhead turtles who had come ashore to lay their eggs  We stopped for ice cream and ran into a couple vacationing here in Palm Beach who went on and on about the beauty here – palm trees, the stunning Mediterranean architecture and the ocean.

I take all this for granted…again. Since my last major depression several years ago I have come to take all of this beauty as a routine part of my life. During my last major depression I came to these beaches in desperate hope of finding some relief. I desperately searched at the shells and sand and water and mansions and palm trees and dune grass and sea gulls and driftwood and clouds for some relief. I went to the beach almost everyday – a gift of disability insurance – and searched for gratitude and serenity. Never was my appreciation for the beauty around me more intense than when I was depressed. I could see it all but it did not move me.

“How can you possibly feel this way in a place like this?” I asked myself over and over. Everyday I walked and talked to God. After weeks of these sad, sad walks I looked around and realized that nothing in the physical world had changed. Everything was fine. The world was not a horrible place. I must really be sick if I can be surrounded by all this tranquility and beauty and feel this much despair. I was not an ungrateful sloth. I was sick. I am sick. This is real. Depression is real.

I began forgiving myself for being sick. Depression is an illness that robs me of the ability to see, feel, taste, feel and hear beauty. When I am sick I am not able to find joy and wonderment in profound beauty. I am not an ingrate. I am not a bad. I am sick.

As I walked on the very same stretch of beach last night I realized that nothing had changed around me. The shells and sand and water and mansions and palm trees and dune grass and sea gulls and driftwood and clouds were all the same as they had been three years ago. But last night they all seemed so intensely beautiful.

“Now do you understand how sick you were!” God said. “Now will you stop beating yourself up for being sick and enjoy this!”

“Yes, I will. And thank you God for the soft-serve ice cream shop down the street.”

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Prof.Lakshman (July 17, 2009)

greythinking (July 17, 2009)

    Last reviewed: 17 Jul 2009