I've not been depressed. Depression is a clinical condition and those poor bastards who suffer from true depression are not helped by people using the term casually.
Truth is, I've been miserable and deeply, deeply sad.
Every gay man knows that coming out is a traumatic experience. My parents listened with care, promised they still loved me, and then changed the subject as quickly as they possibly could. Conversations with them were awkward for ever after. All the conventional conversation starters were preceded by awkward pauses as they stopped to think if the comment was appropriate. For example, my mother's usual tease of "met any nice girls yet" was dropped but she couldn't bring herself to ask about nice boys. Nor did she have an equivalent tease to use in place. Hence the deterioration of our conversations.
My friends (both male and female) were worse. I had been lying to them all this time. Many of my friendships failed immediately after I came out, not because of any homophobia on their part but because they didn't like having been deceived.
Dave was the first friend I made after coming out. He was the first person I had never lied to.
We were never lovers. But we were best friends and we had fun together. I could relax with Dave.
We teased each other, played practical jokes on each other, made dares with each other. Over the time we knew each other we recapitulated our adolescent years but in an openly gay context. We were free to be ourselves and we were happy catching up for lost time. Dave was the first person who ever locked me naked out doors. I was the first person ever to tweak the lock on his gym locker leaving him stranged for thirty minutes wearing only a towel. We were silly, but we had a lot of times to catch up on. What I remember most about my time with Dave was the carefree laughter.
Then one day, after a Sunday afternoon bike ride Dave let me know that he had cancer. The tumour was tiny but had already metastasized. He was starting treatment the following week and he wanted me to know. I cried. We hugged. He said thank you to me and cycled off.
Treatment didn't work despite the valiant efforts of the oncologists. He spent the last month of his life stuck in a hospital bed, slowly leaking blood into his lungs, becoming less and less "there" as the morphine dose got higher and higher. I visited regularly, and cried every time.
His funeral was a cruel charade as all his family described what he was like while dancing around his sexuality. His family was just the same as mine, it turned out. They loved him but could not accept his homosexuality. I was obviously not asked to give a eulogy. I was barely acknowledged at all. I was a stranger, niot the man who had visited Dave's bedside as often as them. I was the reminder of what they wanted to airbrush from history, so they shunned me. I left the funeral more miserable than I had been when Dave had died.
And I have been feeling wretched ever since, but now it's time to snap out of it. Dave would expect nothing less. Normal service will be resumed.