melancholy

Sometimes You Just Gotta Sit With Your Pain

/ Stuart Danker / 83 Comments
Man looking

Photo: Jonathan Rados

One step forward, three steps backwards. Sometimes that’s just how life be like.

I eat healthy. I exercise. I’ve found a full-time job. I seem to have everything I need. Yet something just seems wrong.

I keep looking back to see if there’s a particular event I can put the blame on, but this dark cloud hovering over my head seems to have followed me for as long as I can remember.

We all grow out of things like these, don’t we? Isn’t angst supposed to be like asthma? Something debilitating at the moment that you forget once enough time passes?

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NON FICTION: For The People Who Aren’t Depressed Enough

/ Stuart Danker / Leave a comment

Man sitting on couch frustrated

Photo: Nik Shuliahin

“You’re fine,” she said.

“Really?”

“Yeah. You did some work this week right? So I’d say you’re not clinical.” She put her clipboard away, the one that she’d scribbled intently on as I spoke. I wondered if she missed out the part when I said I only wrote two sentences this week.

What about Anthony Bourdain? I thought. He worked his ass off. So did Hemingway. Since when did work have to do with feelings? Then I felt guilty for even having the thought to compare myself to the greats.

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FICTION: The Thread Between Soulmates

/ Stuart Danker / 2 Comments

Man and woman lying down face to face

Photo: Toa Heftiba

Floaters are funny little things. They disappear when you don’t pay attention, but the moment you spot one, you realise just how many there are, drifting quietly in your vision, just waiting to be noticed.

That’s how lovelines look like to me. You can’t really tell until you consciously keep an eye out for them. Don’t bother Googling what lovelines are. It’s just a term I came up with, one that you’re probably curious about right now. I certainly was.

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NON FICTION: Remembering Who You Once Were

/ Stuart Danker / 2 Comments

Guy thinking

Photo: Sunyu Kim

Some ten years ago I wrote this: “I woke up to a world greyer than usual. It’s as if Crayola came and took away the colours from my life.”

No, it wasn’t a Myspace post.

Sometimes I like reading my old work just to see what I was thinking at the time, and as much as I like to poke fun at my younger self, he does give me some hints as to why I am the way I am today.

If feelings were a scale of one to ten, I would have been hovering at a three for as long as I can recall. This was why I took to reading my old posts just to see how far back I’d stopped caring.

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