Flash Fiction: "Letting Go"

Didn’t call it depression at the time. Or anything else, really. As far as I knew, this was just my mental state, the natural result of anxiety, brooding, doubt. Days of inertia. I read. When I wrote, mostly it was in a journal. I tried writing short stories but tended to abandon them once I thought I could see I was building up, in unexceptional or derivative style, to nothing revelatory. I had to find my own approach to writing them and was coming up with nothing. I bingewatched anime, without caring too much about quality. (Well, concept aside, still couldn’t sit through Pokémon. I wasn’t suicidal.) The job search was a struggle: Applications for writing gigs went unanswered, as if I’d sent my resume, an admittedly skimpy document, into a void. Applications for other jobs, though they often required one to submit 75-, 100-question personality tests, would result in automated email replies informing me that they were considering other candidates, at least confirming that someone had actually reviewed the information I’d sent out. I, the college graduate with a loan to pay back, had to find a job and was coming up with nothing. I couldn’t play guitar because nothing had come from the search for my own approach but bad songs. Any pleasure I took was small and fleeting. I was worn out. Droopy. It’s in times like these that one is most likely to neglect oneself. The symbol that best represents this period of my life is a pair of sweats. 

Don’t get me wrong: I never wore them to the grocery store or the rare job interview. But I did wear them until the waist band broke. Then I kept wearing them. I accomplished this feat by balling up the waist in one hand whenever I had to walk around the apartment. Never got around to sewing them or tying them up with a rubber band. It’s as though I were boasting of having lost 200 pounds. My brother facetiously suggested using suspenders or a rope or an extension cord to hold them up. I took no hint and used one hand to hold up my pants until it came to seem normal. Besides, there were so many other things to dither about. 

One day around noon I emerged from the apartment in these sweats, relatively excited to get the mail. What surprises would await me today? At the bottom of the stairs, a father and son appeared. I’d never seen them before and would never see them again. The father gave me the mean mug: You? I continued around the corner, just minding my business, pants in one hand. Don’t worry, I didn’t need two hands to get the mail. I opened our box, placed the mail on top of the unit, closed the box, then grabbed the mail. Opening the gate and closing it again with both hands full was tricky but I managed that too. Took skills to wear these sweats. 

Up ahead, to my surprise, the father and son were standing around. Both looked up as I approached, smiling, muttering to themselves. I suddenly became nervous. Not sure exactly what was going on, I nodded as I passed by. They didn’t nod back. In the middle of the staircase, I glanced over my shoulder. They were watching me go up the stairs. I hurried the rest of the way to the apartment. 

I thought: Ah, the sweats. They were amused by the sight of someone holding up his pants with one hand. I didn’t realize that this would appear comical to anyone who saw it.  

I put the mail down. Then I walked upstairs, to the floor length mirror. I stood before it and stared long and hard, absorbing this shameful sight.  

Then I let go.  

Isn’t that the advice the wind is always whispering?  

Let it go? 

My sweats fell, with no resistance, around my ankles. And I was liberated. I stood there like that for let’s say half an hour, gazing at my reflection. 

“Dude, what are you doing in my room?” my brother would have demanded to know if he saw me.  

And I would have said: This is the first step in my recovery process.