Dreamer

When you were sick you could swat away these feelings and those memories and all those problems with a bag of chips or a jog on the treadmill or a few pills or a few hours more until you can eat. 

You didn’t have to think about the hard things, the things that hurt you most. Yes you still felt the terrible feelings and thoughts from those terrible things, but they were numbed, subdued. It’s telling you it was easier because in a way, it WAS easier. 

But that doesn’t mean it was better. And you know that, and the nostalgia knows that. But you can’t help but yearn for that subdued effect because you could “deal” with things so much easier….. by not dealing with them at all.

holidays are getting better. they used to be bad, you know? you had so much inside of yourself that it spoiled even good things. how can you be happy about dinner when you hate eating. how can you all sit down as a family when the rest of the time, you’re fighting. how can the world be merry and bright when the bones of you are darkness, everlasting.

for a long time nothing brought it back. maybe you expected too much from 24 hours. from each other. from yourself. 

six years ago, at this time, you had “cat scratches” over almost every inch of your body. yes, they will scar. no, it will not stop you from finding love. you were eight pounds underweight. you were a compulsive liar, hated your life, hated everything. couldn’t breathe too deeply. you didn’t believe you had a future, right? no presents would undo that. you are sitting on the floor thinking: i need to sleep forever, more than anything.

you have tattoos now. one of them matches with your little sister. she’s one of your best friends. you’re still - i’m sorry, bad news - depressed. but you finally had the opportunity to get help and you actually found the courage for it and went to a therapist and you got diagnosed and it turns out all those nebulous bad feelings have five (yeah, five! can you believe that. we’re so extra) different names. when we quit maladaptive coping mechanisms, we found better ones, healthy ones. we found healthy. you write, like you’ve always wanted to, and it’s kind of working for you. yes, you’ll be living with certain things for the rest of your life. they still don’t know how to fix your hands or your mind. but your recovery isn’t about fixing yourself. it’s about learning how to feel full with the hand you were dealt. you stop surviving every day like you’re in the middle of storm. you learn the storm is home, and it doesn’t have to stop you from every garden you’ll grow. you’ll learn, and after a while - it’s just rain. you’ll be okay, even when it pours.

anyway. i know how much you hated these days. the darkening sun. it’s called seasonal affective disorder, look it up. it’s like. double depression. fun stuff. i know you always ended up feeling lonely, even in the middle of a loud room. how you couldn’t find fun no matter what you did or who you talked to.

what you’ve learned is how to take it slow. how to mull over good things. yes, you still wake up empty. but you’ve learned that you don’t need to wait for a big thing before that emptiness stops, that the only person who can fill you up is you, that hoping depression goes away for a holiday never works, that instead it’s constant work to build and rebuild a dam, over and over, so that you wake up empty but not broken, so that you are sad but not permanently so. it’s tiring, but it gets easier every brick you lay. every time you walk that path, you wear down the mountain. you feel excitement again. six years in the future. for what might be the first time. not anxious, just excited. hopeful. these two small things that you have no experience with.

i think, even, kind of, we’re happy. it’s a slow kind of year for us. but i think it’s working. and when we can, we feel things.

yeah, that’s the gift, my love. we’re getting our emotions back. sometimes slowly, sometimes too quick. but i know you’re at the point that you’re so numb, you can’t even find animals cute. the world is so dull that a knife is a spoon.

but we get it back. we get it back.