A Stake in the Future

Today for the first time in a long while I feel like I have a stake in the future. A while ago, I was paying some bills and doing banking (which I have been doing for years of course) but I felt there was a shift in me while I did those things. A significant feeling of adulting? For a very long time, I was plagued by undiagnosed ADHD which fostered depression expressed in a feeling that every year was going to be my last year of being alive — so why bother planning and risking doing anything? I was going to die anyway. I remember on my 33rd birthday, I was on board a tricycle bound for home, and I suddenly burst into tears because I was so tired of being alive. [I wrote an essay on that, titled “My Christ Year.”] But I just realized I haven’t had these thoughts for a while now since I started treatment. Grateful that I can look forward to the future again.