You should be dancing

I start a month-long temp job on Monday. When I got the call, I was politely excited on the phone. Then I got off the phone and was immediately slammed by a wall of depression. How am I supposed to stay in shape when I work 8-5? I can't run in the woods in the dark. I'm going to have to get a month-long gym membership and do the treadmill after work. I can't see another way around it. Apparently your 20s are supposed to be like this. It's not true that youth is wasted on the young; so much of youth is struggling, just like life when you're old. 

I picked up the bound copy of my thesis from the university library. Strangers keep telling me congratulations, you should be dancing, and I smile at them, but I haven't felt like dancing since about the end of June. My thesis looks just like the other theses. I shoved it onto a bookshelf. 

It was break at school on Monday, so I picked up a friend and we went shopping for makeup and bargain clothes. As we ate lunch/dinner (linner?/dunch?), she asked what I was up to and I admitted I've been depressed. She admitted that so was she. She's still in school, but afraid of not being able to get a job, etc. I think when you're sad you feel alone, and I'd forgotten that some of my friends aren't doing much better than me these days. We just don't talk about it. Hey, we live in a society where the language is "admit" you've been depressed. Note the implied shame.

I parked 3 or 4 blocks away from work and ran into abortion protesters by the Planned Parenthood. The protesters are usually there Tuesday mornings, so I'm used to them. I know they're Catholics because they pray with rosaries. I smiled and nodded at an old man who was blocking the crosswalk, and he asked me if I was going to school. High school? Were his eyes really that bad? I look younger than my age without trying. Please let it be that way my whole life.