OUTSIDE.

There’s a building site next door to where we live. When we originally moved here in April, we introduced ourselves to the neighbours. And by that I mean we spoke to the one poor bugger that I think we woke up at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon. His name was Dale. It probably still is, actually, we just haven’t seen him since.

When we talked to him, we asked him about the building site. He said he reckoned whoever bought it must have run out of cash, because he hadn’t seen any builders on the site for well over a year. On closer inspection we discovered he was probably right – it looked like they’d just downed tools and pissed off. The slab was down, the frame was up, bricks had been delivered and the wiring had been put in, but there were water bottles, some lunch containers and even a lathe blade just lying around.

So we lived in relative peace and quiet for a time. The house frame became a home for our punching bag, which we only used twice. More often than not the site became a thoroughfare to show people that our fence was in the wrong position and when we needed to go and collect firewood.

Last month, there was an auction of all the vacant lots on our street. Directly opposite us there are three vacant blocks of land, and those along with the building site were auctioned off by possibly the worlds most boring auctioneer of all time. We considered setting up a tea and coffee stall on our driveway, but instead we just silently judged all of the attendees from behind our screen door and sent telepathic no thankyou vibes to the people with children.

The three vacant lots were passed in and some old bloke with a hearing aid bought the one next door to us. The two vacant blocks opposite us sold within the week. Unsurprisingly enough, no one wants a bar of the shitty corner block.

Last week, we spent three days in Melbourne to see out various commitments like birthday parties and theatre related things. We returned on Wednesday night to discover they’d started work on the house.

I dont have a problem with the noise, I just write more at night now so I can focus. I dont have a problem with the builders – when they sneeze I yell bless you. I’m sure they’re all lovely blokes. They’re hardworking, AND they said they need to take our back fence down to put the bricks in but they’d repair it for us so it wasn’t on a thirty degree slant anymore.

But I do have a problem.

I cant go outside when there are people around.

Well, its not that I can’t. I go to the supermarket. I catch a Vline train to Melbourne and back. I’m stage managing a theatre production. Its just that my depression, this sickness, has just infected me and buried itself so deeply within me that I get anxious about going outside of my own house.

The distance from my front door to our mailbox is about two and a half metres. On a particularly bad day, which yesterday filed itself in the category of, I can’t even handle that. I peeked out of the front curtains yesterday during a quiet period, noticed the utes parked across the road and promptly scurried back to the comfort of my doona cocoon.

I thought about what this means a lot yesterday, while I was lying in my own filth. I say that because I haven’t showered since Friday night, but thats another matter entirely. I managed to explain it to my partner thusly: the outside of my house when there are people in close proximity during the day, terrifies me because my brain is convinced that everyone can immediately see my entire pathetic situation as soon as I step outside my front door, looking like a homeless drug addict. They are working. I am not. They are earning money and paying their bills and buying their groceries while I just crawled out of bed at 3pm. They know that, instantly. I don’t know how they do. They just know, and they’re judging me for it. They think I’m unworthy, a burden, a useless, no good dropkick. They see me as an abomination.

So its better to stay inside where no one can see me.

She asked me if there’s a part of my brain that knows thats nonsense. I said there is, but its a very small part and can usually find itself being squashed into silence by this depressive town cryer.

She said, thats really, really bad. I said, I know.

And now you do too.