You've seen my descent, now watch my rising

No. The answer is still no. I am not okay. I wasn’t okay the last time you asked, I’m not okay now, please don’t ask again.

I can’t put a timer on my recovery period. Please don’t ask me to measure in seconds, weeks, or even years what can only be measured in seismic waves. In waves of vertigo.

I cannot approximate the amount of damage done that night, when my life was so violently uprooted from its bed of soil, I can only say its magnitude falls somewhere on the Richter scale. 

Do not ask me how long it has been since I smiled and meant it, ask me instead what stage of grief I keep cycling back to. Ask me what I learned from dancing on fault lines.

Ask me how sleep is even possible when I still feel tremors of the aftershock threatening to topple my spine like a house of cards, how I cling to the edge of my dreams with white-knuckled fists on those nights.

How I manage to climb out of the rubble every morning to rebuild my world. Brick by brick. The ground has not stopped quaking under my feet, ask me how I’m keeping my balance.

GREY'S ANATOMY 1.03 — Winning a Battle, Losing the War