The Stairs (Patreon)
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Even though I’ve been making this hike daily for years, it always leaves me winded by the time I reach the fifth floor (though going down is pretty effortless) On days when I have less energy, I’ll take the lift up but still use the stairs to descend, so I’m still using my body somewhat. The thing is, I need to exercise to keep my mental illness manageable. When I am physically exerted, it keeps my blood pumping, keeps the depression from clogging up my cells and strangling my brain.
The last several months (the better part of the year?), I’ve been too exhausted to use the stairs at all. Tired and sad, tired and sad, too tired and sad to move my body up and down stairs. Taking the elevator feels like defeat, but I just don’t have enough juice in me to climb five flights of stairs. So I push the button and let the machine haul me up and the depression festers in me and I’m tired and sad, tired and sad. When I told my therapist about this feedback loop I’m stuck in, she countered with “You can still climb *one* flight of stairs, though.”
One flight. I can do one flight.
“Go up just one flight and then you can take the elevator the rest of the way up.”
And I do.
Some days I climb up the first flight and then I veer out of the stairwell to summon the elevator. And some days, a lot of days, I take the stairs to the second floor landing and I realize I have enough energy to go up one more. Some days, a good number of days, I can make it up one more and then one more and one more again and then I’m there, I’m on the fifth floor.
I’m tired and sad, I’m going to be tired and sad for a long time, and I can climb one flight of stairs.