My mind is a restless rolodex of song lyrics. 

The power that music holds for me is almost medicinal, I think. There are lines and melodies that soothe, words that bring me to tears in seconds, and bits of my favorite songs that push push push until I remember why I keep breathing through my tough days. 

There's been one song on repeat in my head for the past few days and I knew it was begging to be written about. Last night, I looked through my journal entries from the last week and noticed that I had scribbled the line at the bottom of several pages without really thinking about it. So, you pretty lyric you, I'll write about you and ruminate you out of my system. I'll give you a light. 

"Now my work is done, I feel I'm owed some joy."

These are the first words of Josh Ritter's sweet song "Bright Smile," which I used to listen to nearly every day when I was working at the small family-owned book/collectables store where I spent so much time during college. We had a big collection of CDs behind the counter-- two whole shelves full of alphabetized artists just waiting for their chance to be spun on the big store speakers. But my coworkers and I played favorites. Haley often opted for a smooth compilation album called "Great Women of Jazz." Jim, our gentle and ultra-wise manager, usually chose Paul Simon's "Graceland" or anything by Willie Nelson. Stephen had a weird but lovable penchant for The Nylons, an all-male a cappella group that produced cringeworthy covers of 1980s pop songs. Joan loved Mary Chapin Carpenter more than I thought anyone was capable of. And I'll admit that a few of us had a love-hate relationship with the Garden State soundtrack.

But for me and my coworker, Jess, it was always Josh Ritter. I'll never hear his croon without being transported back to that now-closed shop on Main Street in Ann Arbor, the smell of incense and fair-trade soaps, and the way it felt to be 22 and in a permanent state of transition.

We had the prettiest ceiling of any store I've ever seen. 

But enough about that bright little shop and those beautiful people. I'll write a whole separate post on them at some point, I'm sure. Today I want to talk about that song. About those words. About the feeling of being owed, or of owing, or of waiting for the work to end. 

"Now my work is done..."

When I hear these words, my mind is not flooded with memories of college film projects or term papers or hours in the library. I don't think about the jobs I've held or the internships I've completed or the resumes I've mailed into the dark abyss during my career hunt. I certainly don't reflect on the small pockets of physical work I've done. The long bike rides or the occasional runs or the attempts to become something more than mediocre at yoga. 

For the past seven years or so, my work has been mental. I have put more energy into building, healing, and understanding my mind than I've put into anything else. When I think "work," I recall the hot tears and the confusion. That black-brained feeling and the people I've collapsed into. The holes in my heart that I thought I'd never fill. The times I got into my car at midnight and drove around quiet streets while the city slept, silently crying to the college radio station. My hardest work has been my therapy appointments and my mindful moments and the way I've swallowed the sharp disappointments of being human. 

Depression and anxiety have been my companions, my "dark passengers" (for all you Dexter fans out there) since I first started this battle with mental illness. They've been my full-time job for a very, very long time. They have brought me despair and fear and the most frightening pockets of calm. They've been my constants. 

But I've worked, and I've fought, and I've lived through it all. I've managed to keep my (somewhat demented) sense of humor. I lived abroad and went nearly an entire year without major symptoms. I know that depression never boils down or fades away completely, but it has given me some room to breathe over the past year. And for that, I'm grateful. 

"... I feel I'm owed some joy."

I'll admit that I long for some kind of equilibrium that simply doesn't exist. For every hour I've been in pain, shouldn't I get an hour of happiness? Don't the people who've hurt me have some obligation to gather together and send some sweet new friend my way? Oh, I know how utterly delusional this all sounds, but it's so hard to swallow the fact that life doesn't owe us anything.

I'm not sure if I believe in karma. I mean, I made fun of my friend for taking a selfie in public the other day and immediately hit my funny bone on the edge of the table, so maybe karma exists in some menial sense. But I do know--  as most of us come to learn the hard way-- that we don't get things just because we think we deserve them. Our broken hearts don't guarantee better love the next time we try. Our failures don't morph into cosmic coupons that we can trade in for successes. Our anger is just our anger, and our hurt is just our hurt. 

I guess this is the part where I'm supposed to have some sweetly explained wrap-up about how we create our own joy and how our suffering makes us more keenly aware of the goodness when it hits us, but I'm not sure if that's what I believe. Right now, I don't write to solve. I write to ask. 

And besides, I know that my work is not really done. The agony and wonder of being a person is never truly over until we're six feet underground. Sure, I've suffered and I've worked. But I've also had joy, and I will have it again. I won't get it as a result of waiting or wanting. I won't get it in exchange for what I have or haven't said. I won't get it because it's owed to me. 

I'm still gonna sing along to that Josh Ritter song, and I'm probably still going to throw pennies into fountains and cross my fingers and ask the universe to magically morph me into Tina Fey when I'm blowing out birthday candles. I'm still gonna scribble those lyrics at the bottom of my journal just in case I'm wrong about all this. 

I'm still going to wish. But I can't afford to wait. 

Until next time, take a listen to "Bright Smile."