Being grateful is hard. Living through the past twenty months, living full stop, is just... A lot. And at the same time nothing. Unemployment. Words like inflation, depression, deficit, budget cuts, pulling up your boot straps... teaching a man to fish. All of these things that add up to me basically never leaving my dads house like. Ever. Boredom is the absolute worst. When nothing happens. When days pass spent bundled in blankets surrounded by sweet wrappers with the sound of the latest hit Netflix show buzzing in my ears as my eyes flicker shut. Weeks can pass like this. It can be hard to stay grounded. It can be really hard sometimes to remember that there is still a lot of good. And a lot to be grateful for. I did a positive psychology course a couple of years ago in my quest to find out what it is, if anything, that I might be interested in.(Historically I've struggled with finding direction a lot.) One of my main takeaways from the course was to practice being grateful for stuff. To sit down at the end of each day and reflect on something I feel good about. Something that fills me with a sense of gratitude and well being. And to write it out. The writing part is important. There's something about holding the pen in your hand, letting the feelings out through the ink and pen scratchings. I don't do that. What I do is every now and again when I feel. Well... Pissed is probably the right word for it. Fuming would also do. When I'm feeling bad and I'm aware enough to actually do something about it instead of watching more TV I'll write a list. I'll head it 'gratitude list' and I'll write twenty or thirty things that are good about my life. And the pen doesn't even get a look anymore. It's all on a notepad on my phone. And it's rushed. (Sure putting that positive psychology knowhow to work.) when I'm struggling sometimes it might start off with something like 'Have roof over my head' and work my way out to other things more personal to me. My dad's nearly always on there, since he was diagnosed with cancer at the end of last year. A lot of the time there's ice cream. Here is the list I wrote today, to keep me grounded. Gratitude list 20/10/2021: 1.Never having to share my bedroom 2.Having privacy/space when I want it 3.Having my own bookcase (with nearly 100 books) 4.Always having books in the house growing up 5.Knowing how to read 6.Being read to by my parents when I was a kid 7.Having a good head on my shoulders 8.Getting to spend quality time with my dad and brother today 9.Having Ice cream in the freezer 10.Having savings 11.Having spare cash 12.The support my dad has recieved since being diagnosed 13.Mum checking up on me 14.How attracted my fiancee is to me 15.My time at CCAD 16.Getting this time with dad 17.My hair 18.The sparrows that live in the roof nextdoor. Bit of an eclectic one today (and there's that ice cream as predicted) and I fell short of the twenty I usually manage, but these are the things that got me through today. And some of them might sound silly but they matter to me. Reading is a big one. My life has always had stories in it. I'm in love with fiction. When I was a teenager I could devour whole books in a day. Get lost somewhere I actually want to be lost in. I fell out of love with reading for a while there, a period of four or five years, starting when I went to art college. I would try to read and I would struggle though ten pages or so before putting the book down. It just wasn't happening for me. I am so grateful that I have been able to find my way back to fiction and that I was led there in the first place when I was small. Books have been a good friend throughout the pandemic. My current companion is Good Omens (one I was read as a kid.My mum has good taste in stories) and it's as good as the first time I read it. Wracking my brains for something, even something small, that gets me through the day gets me though the day. And there have been so many days that have been hard to get through lately. It doesn't feel like it will end. But as long as there's sunshine, cute animal videos and £1 bars of chocolate I will have something to smile about, even if that smile is smaller some days than others. And I can carry them around in my pocket too and look them up on my phone whenever I need reminding that life isn't too bad, even when it's really bad.

It's the 3rd of February, the world's at its best pace. I'm on my terrace, walking, thinking, dreaming. The sky looks beautiful in its deep blue. The orange sun is yet to set. I start browsing, I witness a myriad of vacant rooftops and just one or two human figures, either in search for a dependable cell phone network or peace. I come here for the latter. My father is a social worker, he has devoted his life to service. While I was in school, I wouldn't see him for days, even if he was still in town, by the time he'd come I was mostly asleep and by the time he was up, I was in school. My sister is completing her studies in a different state, I don't even remember the last time I talked to her for more than five minutes. My mother is a homemaker, but she's  barely home probably because she's a "social person" and when she is home, I either have an assignment to complete or some place to visit. It's been ages since I've had a proper conversation with any of them, or since the four of us sat together talking about the good times and amusing. My family is just one of the thousands of things that pop up in my head while I'm up here. I walk further to the edge of the terrace, I bend slightly to get a peek of what's going on in the world below. I discover a bevy of kids playing soccer, people wrapping up their days, cars honking moving around in a rush, a couple walking hand in hand, a small time grocer trying to desperately sell literally everything he has to a single customer. I see the kids again, this time half of them celebrating their victory by hugging each other and laughing in delight. Besides them, I see two women, probably neighbors, fighting and abusing each other with complete vigor. One of them is now looking  skywards and yelling some terrible words, I wonder who she's shouting at, there's nobody up here except me. Oops, I better get back to my walk. So basically today looks just like any other day! Now let's fast forward a little to when a pandemic took over our lives and everything just flipped. It's the 26th of march today. A few days back our Prime Minister announced a complete lockdown in our country. I still come up here, on the terrace, but it's an entirely different sight nowadays. The sky is still in its deep blue, I still hear noises, but this time not of the cars honking, today I hear the sounds of humans, a lot of humans, to be fair. The rooftops that once never showed signs of life, now look like a carnival, only a socially distanced one though. On any other day I would've been slightly disconcerted by the fact that the only place I turned to for peace had transformed into some kind of playground filled with people. But not today, and to be honest I actually feel delighted, because I don't just see individuals, I see families, families that have probably laughed together for the first time since ages, families that have conversed with each other as a whole, families that held hands like there's no tomorrow. Even I am not alone today, I'm walking alongside my father, talking about things we never thought we'd ever talk about, discovering interests, we never knew we had in common, exploring my plans for the future that I never thought would fascinate him. A few feet apart, I see my sister and my mother sitting together and laughing about how terrible my sister had cooked last night, and surfing for new recipes on the internet for my father who's next in line to cook dinner, and it's not just the four of us, I see joy and happiness all around me. Funny, isn't it? The times that are the hardest, are the times I am surrounded only by felicity.  My father went and sat next to the mother-daughter duo, gesturing me to join, I tell him I'll be there in a minute. I would've just gone and sat with my family, but I'm so amused by looking at everything around me, that I was tempted to uncover this new world. I see a young couple teaching their toddlers badminton, I see a mother teaching her kid to ride a bicycle next to her husband who was listening to his daughter explain some features about the laptop, I also see the neighbors who once used to come to blows quite often, today sit on their respective balconies, chattering. I smile to myself and go sit with my family. People feel that the pandemic somehow forced families and individuals to come closer, but I feel that the pandemic just gave us a reason to pause and reflect. We'd all been so worried and in such a rush to get the best of our lives that we missed savoring the most beautiful moments. The pandemic, let us stop for a moment and breathe, it let us contemplate, realize and understand all those pieces that we had missed in these hasty lives of ours. I'd once read "Sometimes, reaching out and taking someone's hand is the beginning of a journey. At other times, it is allowing another to take yours." This pandemic made us reach out and hold one's hand as well as let our hands to be held.

When you close your eyes, what do you see? I'll tell you what I see. Black. Pitch black. An empty void. Nothingness. That darkness, it tightens its grip around you. It starts with your chest, as if it were aiming for your heart. It squeezes, pushing the air out of you making it hard to breathe. It swarms your body making it impossible for you to move. Slowly, then all at once; you are trapped. The only thing you can do is shed a single tear and hope that someone notices your pain. When someone asks you what it feels like to suffer from depression what is a better way l to answer than saying “I don't know?” Let's be real. We really, truly don't know. You feel empty, like there's nothing left to keep you going. You don't know what to do, you don't know how to do it or you just simply can't. It's not because you're a dumb, lazy millennial. It's because your body is keeping you from doing it. It's telling you; No, don't move. You're going to hurt yourself. I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety when I was about 13 years old. Being just a child, I had some pretty scary thoughts rummaging through my mind. I didn't know what was wrong with me. As I got older I learned that there were a lot of people like me, I knew that I was not alone. I had trouble verbally expressing my emotions so I never really went to people for help. Instead, I did what I could to help others. That is how I got my happiness, knowing that I could be there for others in their time of need. My happiness slowly started coming to a halt. I still tried my best to help others when they needed me, but it didn't make me happy anymore. I had a rough relationship with my parents. They divorced when I was seven. They were distant; always working. But at the same time they were fighting for custody of my brother and I and trying to make it a competition of who was the better parent. In reality, they were never there for us. Sometimes I believe this is where it all began. I never had anyone to express myself to because this competition made my parents angry. Angry at each other, and angry at my brother and I. Of course it back lashed. I became a distant child. I didn't talk to them much, I had an attitude slightly worse than the average teenager.. But it was always my fault. No, it couldn't have been because of the lack of parental guidance. It was just because I was a disrespectful kid. At least that's what I was told. At about 16, my best friend, my grandma, passed away from stage 4 lung cancer. While she lived 5 hours away, we still made an effort to spend every weekend with her. She was our rock and she did her best to shape us into the people she thought we should be. She was diagnosed when I was around 13, shortly after I was diagnosed with my depression. My grandma was stubborn and a fighter. But from the day of her funeral and so on, the depression got worse. At this point I felt truly empty inside. My exact thoughts were “We all die at some point anyway, what's the point?” Day after day I continued to trudge through life the best I could. It didn't work. My grades dropped, I stopped showing up to school, I stopped caring. Eventually they had to put me into an alternative school just so I could graduate. Just after I turned 18, I was able to graduate early; but that wasn't the end of it. I couldn't keep a job. I didn't have the will-power to get out of bed every day and take on the world. For this, I was lazy, I was irresponsible, I was a failure. This isn't about a pity party though. In fact, a pity party is the exact opposite of the purpose of my writing. I want everyone who's going through the same thing to understand. You are at rock bottom, but the only place you can go from there is up. At 19 now, I finally pushed myself and found my will-power to wake up every day. All it took was a set of goals and one person to motivate me. I started writing again. I took on a new hobby as a photographer. I found a perfect relationship. I will be moving out of my parents toxic household in a little over a month. I am starting to become happy again. At 13, I was diagnosed with severe depression. At 19, I can tell you that it does get better, and you will be happy again.