Depressed?

A few days ago I had a feeling I haven't had in a while. Probably never felt since I arrived here. The urgent need to go back to my country of origin, drop everything and give up. Give up the hard earned stability, the clean air, the great beer, the pine trees outside my window and the ability to safely walk home at 3 a.m. (yes, walk) from whatever watering hole I spent the evening looking at beautiful waitresses with a musical background absolutely not resembling mexican "grupero" music. I felt the urge to surrender to my old tried and true habits. Mexican food, old friends, watery beer, my drum kit, scorching heat, suicidal traffic, corrupt politicians, religious mind control...

Why? What for? What's the origin of such unthinkable feelings after so much trouble? I suddenly realized I was not happy. But why? Isn't this what you wanted? The purpose of my life became suddenly empty, meaningless. Honestly, it probably was never there, but at some point it felt attainable. Not at that moment. I suddenly felt my feet were taking me nowhere.

A couple of days later I read some news from my country. The "same old, same old" has become worse than ever. And the worse it gets, the more of a habit it becomes to them. Violence, corruption, pollution, mind controlling religion, mind controlling bureaucracy, absolute loss of the sense of shock. More on that some other time.

And then, as swiftly as the despair and sadness overcame my longing for that country, my depression and sense of lack of purpose disappeared. I'm fine, this is what I wanted to do, where I wanted to be, with whom I wanted to be. And there are so many things I can do to make things better over there, whether they listen or not...

Hand photo courtesy of Vision.org