Other Birthdays
Other Birthdays
Depression party and listening walk
2018
TW: Talk about suicide. If you are having thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255 (TALK) or text TALK to 741741
Other Birthdays celebrated people who have struggled with suicidal depression.
On April 2nd 2012, I reached a limit with depression: I sat at the Humboldt Park lagoon in Chicago, watched the water for a long time, then biked to the Whole Foods at Canal and Roosevelt to see how easy it would be to fall off the rooftop parking lot. It was indeed an easy spot to fall from, and I stood there for a very long time, until I eventually decided to leave and eat. Since then, I sometimes visit that parking lot as a cathartic check-in on my relationship with myself and broader cosmic perspective. I now consider April 2nd my "other birthday", since it was a palpable moment of deciding to keep slogging through life, rather than the alternative. For people who do choose to die, maybe their date of death could be considered an "other birthday", too.
In April 2018, I organized this listening walk which roughly followed the same route from 2012, a distance of about 6 miles. It was a celebration for people who have other birthdays, or love people with other birthdays. We ended the walk at the same rooftop parking lot, where we created big, floating soap bubbles, and a person we didn't know played the trumpet nearby.