Why is it you can accomplish so much, have so many people tell you what a great thing you’ve done; how proud and impressed they all are and the next day feel like shit again?  I peaked last week graduating from Oxford; feeling slightly hysterical and inflated (a feeling I cannot recall having in my life ever) because I felt I finally cracked into the world of people who used to terrify me with their encyclopaedic brains.  What happens is when you’re wearing that black bat cape and square hat with the tassel is that suddenly people assume you know something and converse with you like you can actually bring something intelligent to the table. 

 In the past I used to drip in sweat when seated near an ‘expert’ on anything from politics to worm farming, terrified they would find out that I knew absolutely nothing; my mind an empty, cloudless sky. In those situations I always wanted to call a friend like they do on game shows to get some info on the subject to show I’m not such an idiot rather than have to hold some inane smile on my face expressing fascination. Does anyone have that thing called self-esteem for more than a few hours? And what does it mean anyway? How can your self have esteem about it self?   It’s just another thing (sensation) you stick on you but nothing to do with the ‘self’. What happens the next day after they put the gold over your neck at the Olympics or you score a goal in football and a hundred people hug you? How long can the esteem for themselves stick around before it loses it’s erection? 

 For reason’s of health I think we should all put our efforts on just feeling our ‘self’ without the accoutrements of pride or esteem or even disappointment.How this is done is not easy because there so much out there to tempt us to look great, make money, get power, be famous, to get more than the other guy, to win, win ,win whatever there is to win. Here’s the real bitch: No one likes you any more when you get those things and, underneath, when you’re alone you’re just your plain old ‘self’ anyway. I hope this doesn't sound too weird but I know what I mean and that’s all that counts.

Okay here’s a little sampler of what depression isn’t; it isn’t because something bad has happened in your life. I am a living example of that myth put to bed. Nothing bad happened, as a matter of fact I just graduated from Oxford on Monday; this should be every Christmas that ever was wrapped together in the world of self esteem. That ‘I’m so happy I could burst thing’ lasted one day, today is Friday and I’ve recognized only this morning that I am going down the rabbit hole of sanity.  Even I, who thinks I’m such an expert on those who are mentally unwell took a full 3 days to realize my thoughts are turning sick and vindictive  that comes with the infection of depression. 

Thoughts are the signals of the illness, there’s no other way to recognize it. There is no lump, no rash, no scar as proof, only warped, vicious thoughts. They start off rational enough then I start looking through my contacts list at how many people I know and then decide I need to call them all immediately.  I do this probably out of extreme fear that I’m disappearing and will shortly be forgotten by everyone in the world.  I feel death is imminent (another bad sign).  I start with a few ‘how are you’ calls and then like a flood-gate opening, they become obsessive; I call people while I’m driving, sitting on the loo, shaving my legs and cutting them by accident because my  hand is dialing on the phone. I’ve also started to answer every email that’s ever been written to me for no apparent reason, hoping they won’t be answered so I don’t have to answer them back.

I could tell I needed to call a doctor because this morning after insisting on an x-ray for everything I went to pick up my glasses from the shop at 7 in the morning and parked outside waiting for it to open on a double yellow line with the blinkers going and trucks honking at me to pass the one lane road. While I was sitting there meditating I realized I needed help so I’m going to the doctor now.  There is solace in this that I am aware the black dog is back but may only stick around for a little while; at least I know and that’s a gift.

Monday the 16th September was the happiest day of my life, and now a few days later I am already sliding downhill because I know I’ll never top that act. On Sunday I started thinking about how my parents told me I was a ‘sad sack.’ I never figured out what that meant but it wasn’t good.  They completely gave up on me; the school suggested I go into remedial classes with people who had no first language or last language. I also remember getting such low SAT’s scores that my mother insisted that something was be wrong with the grading machine and made me take them again. When they asked on the test which one of these words doesn’t fit with the rest; A rhinoceros? A dog? An eagle or an artichoke?  I could not tell you the answer, I saw no difference.  Last Monday I graduated from Oxford University, my parents are probably not just spinning but having an epileptic seizure wherever they are.

 I couldn’t sleep the night before my coronation, folding my bat-winged gown and wrapping in tissue paper my square black cap with the tassel.  The next morning my college met and we were all instructed how the ceremony was to take place.  We were told that we would have to bow three times once to the Dean of the university twice to his two sentinels in costumes that made them look like Jacks in a deck of cards. After the instructions we all marched down the streets of Oxford, skittish with over-excitement into the Sheldonian theatre, built between 1664 and 1668 and designed by Christopher Wren - and I’m talking flying cherubs on the domed ceiling and God pointing at all of us.

The whole ceremony was in Latin, they could have been saying anything and then we had to say something back to them in Latin, which I kept forgetting and when I finally bowed I think I said “Starbucks” in panic. Two elderly elders dressed as Tutors walked up and down with silver sceptres, I was told it was so that anyone who objected to anyone of us getting our masters could object.  I thought I’d be busted and pointed out as a fraud but everyone kept schtum. At this point I was just smiling teeth, unable to believe I was playing the part of me. After the bowing and we were ushered out of the building we were shuffled into a Hogwarts-style room and had to change costumes, signifying we were no longer students but now masters. This outfit was far more elaborate, all embroidered with a green and gold hood.  We had to march back into the Sheldonian again this time with the audience cheering.  We did more bowing and swearing to be smart for the rest of our lives and then all went outside to throw our hats into the air. I have only seen this in films and now I was in it.

All I have left to say is ‘it’s never to late,’ and if they say you’re stupid when you’re young make sure you end up at Oxford.

I got back from Sydney at 6a.m in the morning on Monday, so I walked the empty streets of Notting Hill Gate as the police started to roll in preparing for the festival in full riot gear but you could see they wished they could just be normal, not dressed with padding like someone was going to take a pot shot at them. The street suddenly filled with jerk chicken stands and roasted corn and I’m thinking,  “Why can’t we live like this?”  You suddenly realize here in blonde, skeletal mummy-land (W11) there are other nationalities on earth.

There was a time these jerk chicken cookers owned the hood before the hedge funders hedged in. And then glory be, on my way home, I realized that the people who were to later mount the floats were using my street as a changing room to get ready for when they’ll hump to music so loud your kidneys vibrate. The rails in front of the fuck off houses were covered in feathered headdresses like birds of paradise had just swooped in and taken over. There were pop-up make up stands where both sexes had jewels pasted on wherever flesh showed. I felt how inferior we white people are in our sad little pale bodies while these luscious, smooth-skinned Jamaican descendants put us to shame. Even fat girls looked sensational; here’s the bitch - none of them sag, none of them have wrinkles, even if they’re 90 they can shake their ass while we just solidify and our bones crumble.

I ended up helping put on gigantic peacock headdresses and bejewelled bikinis like some minion to the feathered Gods.  We white people suddenly literally pale into insignificance standing next to them, those who are about to have the time of their lives.  I wish I could get on the float with them but I’d be flung off when they realize I have no beat.  Their lives are probably so hard and we are probably responsible for making it so hard, taking over their neighbourhood. But on this one day, they rule.