The weather outside this morning is a perfect mirror of my insides.

It has been raining, and as I leave my apartment, the world is covered in a slick, slippery coat, the kind of surface that thoughts and memories slide right off. There is a thin layer of sticky, blanketing fog, and the trees stand barren, having lost most of their remaining leaves in last night’s winds.

The Oxbow is glassy as I drive past, much like my gaze must be - slightly baffled, not comprehending. Why am I here again? Why do I care? Why am I outside, watching myself drive through the murk of my own mind, when I could be sleeping in my warm bed, curled up with a cat who doesn’t particularly care if I’m presentable so long as he gets fed?

Sometimes rain gives the world an appearance of cleanness and freshness, of renewal and hope. And sometimes it makes the world look dirty, glum and inhospitable. My mind, too, feels inhospitable. Which is probably why I’m not living there at the moment, but off in some other world where nothing really matters. Even the prospect of losing pay – or worse, losing my job entirely – was barely enough to drag me out of the house, and has yet to be enough to drag me out of this misery.

This happened last month at this time, too. The medications can only hold out against the tide of hormones for so long, and eventually the depression wells to the surface like evil little beads of sweat or blood, and I struggle against drowning for a few weeks until the veil drops away and I’m left on the shore, coughing and gasping and reveling in the freedom for another two or three weeks, until the waves crash down again and the cycle starts anew.

Looks like it’s time to see the doctor again.