I have been drowning the past few months, like most of the world, but adding to that a few other life stresses: I had decided mid-pandemic to go no contact with my parents for a few years, plus a bunch of other life issues. I FaceTimed a psychiatrist, who drilled through questions with deadpan precision, ultimately diagnosing me with an anti-depressant. I went to the pharmacy one Friday afternoon before a trip Out East (as they say).

"Good luck with it," the pharmacist said. An expression hidden behind a blue mask; mine behind a toile one.

"Oh, yes, thanks," I said before turning and walking back home. I had read a lot about the side effects, of course, that's why he said it, I thought. People gained weight, lost weight, lost their appetite, vommed the first few days, got headaches that everyone on Reddit referred to as "brain zaps." But the benefits outweighed the risks.

That night we arrived at Alistair's friends' house in Orient. We stayed there one Easter a few years back, they are lucky enough to have a house right on the beach. It was an unexpected trip, and would end a day before a trip to Asbury Park that Alistair and I had booked a month prior. We picked Asbury Park specifically because it would be low-risk: we'd take the ferry where we could sit outside (low risk), spend our days on the beach (also low-risk), and eat our meals in a hotel room or outdoors. I hadn't left my neighborhood for five months, and even though I denied it, Alistair believed that added to my stress and depression.

That night in Orient we watched the sunset over the Peconic and Long Island sound with our hosts and had a bottle or rosé. In the bathroom I examined the first pill (a half dose) I was supposed to take with mild skepticism.

No, it wasn't the stigma, no. It was just that I had done that all before. In 2012 I used to empty Prozac capsules into cranberry juice and stir them with my index finger. I never got well, was nauseated from the pills, and hated that the only hobby that made me feel like a true adult was now curbed (read: drinking). It was decided that they weren't working for me. I hadn't had anything else since.

I took the new pill that night and woke up to a wave of nausea that I remedied with ginger chews. Early in the morning we put on our bathing suits and they took the boat out for breakfast on Shelter Island. Later we anchored near an abandoned pebble beach and Alistair swam me to shore on a floatie (looking at the distance to the shore, all my swimming confidence disappeared). There were purple jellyfish at the waters edge. Someone said it was a sign of exceptionally warm weather.

I was still too depressed for anything: even nice meals outside, evening bike rides, movies on a projector screen in a beautiful backyard under the stars.

I was sad in Asbury Park, too. Someone yelled at me on the boardwalk on our first day. On our second day there a tropical storm that passed through but cleared up by dusk. We went for a walk downtown. I had a tantrum at over something silly but really I was frustrated, I was tired. I still didn't want to acknowledge the small piece of my depression that came from everything happening in the world.

The pandemic means living a life of uncertainty, vague estimations, future unknown. It feels doubly hard to have no escape. My mind was already a joyless prison, and to escape it was to go into another prison of the neighborhood, the death toll, lackluster outdoor dinners, picnics, walks, the same thing on repeat. Worse than boredom, there was that phrase I kept reading in pandemic think pieces: "collective grief". Ironically, a shared grief made lonelier because of social distancing. Does remembering this fact make it easier or harder to cope with? I couldn't say.

We went to the boardwalk where the sun was setting, the beach was blocked by caution tape to protect people from the earlier storm surge. We followed everyone else and ducked under the tape and went to the shore. The sky was pink. It was actually beautiful.

Despite my terrible mood, when we returned to New York I felt the benefits of the vacation and the sun. In the following weeks my mood began to stabilize.

July and August