Behind the Glass
On the door I couldn't open during a season of depression, and the family living in the next room.
STILL JUNE · ESSAY № 04 · NOVEMBER 2025 · 8 MINIt feels like I’m pressed up against a pane of glass.
On the other side, life is happening. My kids are sprawled across the couch, giggling at something I can’t hear from here. Dustin’s in the kitchen, humming while he unloads the dishwasher, calling out something I don’t catch through the door. Sunlight spills across the floor in long, golden stripes, and everything looks warm. Alive. Ordinary in the best kind of way.
And I’m not in it.
I’m behind the door again—caught in the one place I can’t seem to leave lately. I say, “I’ll be out in a minute,” but the minute stretches. And stretches. Until an hour has passed, and I’m still sitting there, tears slipping down my face for reasons I can’t always name. Or maybe I can—but saying them out loud feels like pressing a bruise.
It’s not that I don’t want to be with them. I ache for it. I want to sit next to Finley and listen to her talk about everything and nothing—her voice running on like a stream. I want to laugh with Nash, wrap my arms around Dustin from behind. I want to be there.
Just… not like this.
Not with this weight on my chest.
Not with this fog in my head.
Not as this version of me I didn’t choose and can’t seem to shake.
Depression doesn’t always knock. Sometimes it just closes the door behind you and whispers, “Just a minute.” Then it holds you there—frozen in the quiet—while life keeps moving in the next room.
I hear them.
I love them.
I’m trying.
But I’m behind the glass, watching a life I want to live, unable to find the strength to step back into it. And I don’t know how to explain that the silence isn’t distance—it’s pain. It’s not that I don’t care. It’s that I care so much, I can’t bear to show up half-alive and pretend it’s enough.
I’m still here. Still listening. Still hoping the minute will pass.
And maybe tomorrow, it will.
STILL JUNE · ESSAY № 04 · FILED FROM CHARLOTTE, NC
This is painful... There are days I feel like this... Like the world around me is moving (or running, laughing) but I am just there, looking at them... Caged.