Women who sing will keep me alive, I swear. 

For many months now I have been depressed. And I have felt in my gut that this depression is here for a reason. Today my depression spoke to me. 

It said the same thing a friend told me all those years ago when I was helping with her physio – Purni, it’s obvious you’re putting in so much effort, but it’s not translating to strength. More recently, someone else told me that my hatred and disappointment in myself is holding me back. It wasn’t said to help me, more to tell me that I deserved to feel like a piece of shit. But I took it as constructive criticism.

Today my depression told me that my soul is tired. I’m putting so much effort in but nothing is translating into strength. I am not growing stronger in spirit. People are coming by, knocking me over for sport and moving on. And I’m letting them, thinking this is the ‘work’ one does when one commits mind, body and soul to a mission, to a love.

Oh hell now, my depression tells me, oh HELL NO. Be done with this behaviour NOW. Sit with yourself and listen to what the voices are saying to you. Are they saying you’re too ugly, too fat, too old, too boring to be loved? Are they saying you’re too dumb, too weak, too full of shit to be a leader? Are they saying you don’t deserve money & stability? Are they saying you must suffer for the sake of your history? Are they saying that your trying doesn’t matter, that you’re exactly where you deserve to be, in this hole?

My depression tells me that it’s here because it’s SICK of these voices and these ridiculous statements. It’s here to tell me that I may die without certain things, but not alone, not loveless. It’s here to tell me that if I won’t, then it will render me helpless – so that I can’t move and make more damage. My depression says it will hold me down until I learn to yell & scream – LET ME GO, FUCKER, I HAVE THINGS TO DO, PLACES TO BE AND PEOPLE TO BE LOVED BY.

Young women are making such tremendous music nowadays. How do they know the things they do? I love their bravery. I love that they’re letting art flow through them with a force that no one can stop. I love that they’re turning pain into gold. Maybe, they’re tortured – who knows? But they reach my ears, my soul. And if music – and my soul – is all I’ll be left with at the end of the day, then that’s pretty damn good. Pretty damn good.

(PS: Women have always known)