27/31: wondering & wandering

it perplexes me what it means to be lost and i wonder if i am the epitome of that condition. maybe we live to remember lost opportunities or die to regret lost moments but either way it seems as though time is the enemy and we are on this side alone. we live with lists of all the things we meant to do but never did because we were too busy with things we thought mattered more at the moment. we run towards constant mirages of productivity and value but grasp at ghost-like images, still believing that as long as we work harder we’ll reach it someday. we’ve become enchanted by an illusion that consumes us and we willingly sacrifice the ones in our life who love us most of all. we surrender our souls in a search for an impossible goal, a fountain of youth, a city of gold. and when we are left in bitter realization that the ideal we finally caught up to was only a handful of dust, we look around and realize there’s no one left standing but us. we have given up everything and everyone for the sake of what never mattered after all.

i am paralyzingly terrified of the possibility of reaching that point of utter lostness but i cannot seem to keep from pushing all that i love farther away from me. it is protection – so that i will not hurt them in my own condition; but it is fear – because i still do not truly believe i am worthy of their love. i cannot bear the thought of losing any more moments, given away to fear’s victory.

 

26/31: tired of trust

it is exhaustion that drinks the life from my bones and it is horror that eats the love away from my heart. it is the world i see saturated with such indifference and apathy that shakes my skin and breaks my body. haughty glances leave scrapes on my scarred skeleton and it seems as though the hospital has become home for my shivering soul. i am a broken and beaten being but i will keep my lungs mended enough to breathe deeply from the air of anticipation. rest will leave flakes of nightmares in the corners of my eyes for when i awake and renewal will print a shy kiss on my shiny soft lips and tomorrow will be better than today.

25/31: holidays & heartache

holiday sentiments sound hollow as they ring in my ears so i wonder if it’s my hearing or my heart that’s defective. this means so much more than words on a greeting card and happy faces and pretty presents wrapped and morning fires charred. we’re told there’s christmas cheer somewhere in our hearts but no matter how deep we search we know it is a lost cause from the start. coloured lights wrap round and round and round the prickly pine tree and our thoughts go round and round and round our heads to the point of insanity. there’s supposed to be hope and we’re supposed to feel love and there’s this sense of warmth and happiness that we see everyone else has but not us. all their candles are lit but we are left with a thickly blackened taper pressed between our palms that will not open its mouth to lick a single bright cheery flame.

so we wonder, will wounded hearts always burn black or is there ever a way to get this joy back. how long must we wait before the promised healing or should we learn to be content with this life of quietly bleeding.

i think we’re fooled into believing that every day after restoration will be bliss because we live in incessant tunnel vision to the things around us and those before our eyes. we wait for healing to begin: to be healed, to feel healed. to be happy again. but the healing process has already begun. we’ve been in open heart surgery without even knowing it. we’ve been prodded by scalpels and stitched by surgeons and maybe that is where the hurt has been coming from. it’s the process of facing the past and reliving painful moments and correctly what can be changed and accepting what is there to stay. it’s a hell of a journey of forgiving all that we once screamed at to forget, everything we wished could be taken back and made untrue for once. and it takes time because it’s not something we’re going to be okay with today. but maybe tomorrow we’ll be a little more okay with it than yesterday.

what healing doesn’t mean is that we forget everything that happened or that we trivialize the pain that we felt or that we brush off the abuse that was done to us. healing isn’t packing away memories in a cardboard box labeled ‘do not open’ and shoving it onto a top closet shelf. healing means opening up old wounds that never healed quite right so we can medicate the cuts and pick bits of shrapnel left from the battle out. healing means looking back and crying because of how much it hurt and we know it will always still ache because of the scars it left behind. but healing also means looking back and smiling because those scars are scars and not open wounds anymore and because they mean that we survived.

holidays will still be hard but they will get easier as time goes on. we will never be the same children filled with innocence whose bright eyes shone with the untouched joy of christmas. but we are the battle-scarred veterans with worn smiles and a twinkle in our eyes as we tell the story we helped to write.

 

24/31: belief in a better being

my only thought,

all that is left within my mind

is a single truth:

 

it was hope that kept me alive.

23/31: all the years of your yesterday

we’re at the bottom of everything, wondering how we’ll ever climb high enough to reach that glimpse of sky above, wondering if we’ll ever escape to hold that light closer to our slowing hearts. we’re cast in the middle of the chaos and surrounded by incessant shouts, that we must be better than who we are now and that our pasts are synonymous with secrets and shame. we hold back the tears like we hold back the memories to keep our minds from flooding with the ocean of symmetry. let’s lay these painted black roses by the edge of the grave and then walk with the ghosts into the night through the cemetery as we play back every forgotten scene that ever haunted us before.

why has it come to this and when did we lose how to live this life like it was meant to be lived. a world that is brave and new can accommodate the imperfections of my existence just fine so i don’t understand why we are ostracized simply because we are living a different story than theirs. i will not let this stay a broken memory and i will not let skeleton bones build up in the back of my closet or let shadows reside in the corners of my mind.

we will open up our hands and let go of this misery we have been clinging so tightly to as we learn to release control of the things we never had control over anyway. we’ll burn the photographs of all the moments that made us sad and we’ll let the wind lick the ashes off of our shaking palms. kiss my fingers one by one and wash away the bruises and the bleeding from the abuse and all the beatings. and time will heal the stitches and we will learn to love again and to forgive all the hurt because our history is not something to forget but to claim.

 

22/31: regression & revival

and sometimes it feels like we’re living in limbo, like we’re stuck between two stages of life and somehow we’re caged into the current moments and there is no going forward and no turning back. and the present feels like there is nothing meaningful left to say or to write or to do and so we sit and wait and count the seconds that feel like days. we wait for the next life season that we know will come but we just don’t know quite when so maybe we’ll wait just a little longer for the sky to turn a new colour. in this period all existence freezes and our minds work twice as slow and so we start to shut down as we wonder if this really was of any value after all. these words could say anything else but still hold the same nothingness we’re trying so hard to escape, to forget, to unlearn. so we try to decide what has meaning, sorting through life like we’re in the midst of spring cleaning as we toss away the people we no longer need.

and by what right do we leave ourselves with these dull minutes that seem so still as if nothing in eternity were passing by because the world stopped spinning so suddenly. and if we’re lucky we get to the point where we wonder what it is we’re waiting for. and the leaves change colours and fall from tree branches and the streetlights shine on into the night, trying to imitate the shining stars up above and we live on. we just live on.

and the ache of emptiness weighs on our hearts and wears our brittle bones and we are left clinging to the ghosts of the things we once thought we knew. and the question then becomes, is there really a way to move on from all this and to take a step forward or are we destined to this miserable comatose until the thin branches shake and become lined with snowflakes. so we become buried beneath the falling snow and all that’s left of us is ashes anyway so the chilly winter wind makes no difference to us anymore. any ordinary individual might say we were buried alive but we know sure as hell that we were already dead inside.

maybe these colourless hours were all leading up to a resurrection and renewal. it’s the only hope we have for freedom from our own oppressive bondage.

 

21/31: the thin versus the thrill

we are molded in the ordinary and trapped in the mundane, trying to convince ourselves that this is where we belong and if we just live a little longer we’ll find a home for our weary hearts. there’s always that voice at the back of our minds that reminds us when we’re weak that all we’re really trying to do is stay alive. and i wonder if this void inside is truly hollow enough to hear the echo of my heartbeat and the creaking of my ribcage and if i could really grow flowers within my mind.

what scares me is how easily we have forgotten that each breath we take is a risk we choose to make for the sake of life. it’s the belief that there’s something greater out there that’s worth seeking even if we haven’t found it yet but we’re sure that we will someday or we’ll die in pursuit. does the dull taste of disinterest cause your tongue to tremble or are the words you’ve wanted to say stuck to the backs of your teeth even though you’ve rehearsed them each day for when you’d have the chance to speak.

can wonder overwhelm us for a moment as we glory in the shades of the incomprehensible as the sun casts shadows of radiance around. we have lost something that was once the core of our being, the source of our heart’s beating, the air our lungs are breathing.

so, what is life, if not an adventure …

20/31: adoration & an apathetic addiction

if ever you were to feel so alone that you’d consider leaving this world to find some company, just whisper those words in my ear in between each tear and i will hold you tight for the rest of the night until we were able to find some common sense of comfort. and if you have to be lonely, let’s be lonely together because i can’t bear the thought of the cold embracing you on its own and i am jealous of the snowflakes that kiss your lips and make you smile.

i want you to fall in love with this life.

it’s a still saturday and we have all day long to stand in the middle of this empty room and feel the chill of the dusty floorboards beneath our feet and the whistle of the wind between the bare walls that brushes past us as it dances around. maybe we should actually make it a point to remember what each other said today in case this goodbye turns out to be our last. and isn’t it dreadfully alarming how indifferent we truly are to life’s deep value and how we claim to love unreservedly when asked but when put to the test we back up a few steps and tack on some conditions because who could really love someone who’s so different.

it doesn’t have to be like this. we are the world-shapers.

 

a personal note: please read

instead of writing a blog post today, i want to give an update on myself to shed some light on recent events in my life.

many of you have read and/or follow my blog, and i want to thank you for your support and your feedback. i do want to clarify my purpose in starting and continuing this web log.

what i write is, in large part, based on what i have experienced and felt. during the past few years, i have battled major depressive disorder, self hate, and suicidal/self harmful thoughts. much of this was perpetrated by circumstances that occurred during my junior high and early high school years. at the time, i was the victim of several abusive friendships, as well as a lot of bullying. rather than reaching out for help, i reached inward and started believing that i truly was worthless.

it has been a process, but i am no longer at that place. through the help and support of several close friends, family, and professionals, i am healing. i’m not “all better now” and i don’t expect to be. i know that this area is the one i will struggle with the most during my life. but i have now learned how to confront negative thoughts, how to cope with my past, and how to deal with pain.

although it hurt to go through, those rather traumatizing circumstances were a turning point in my life, and have made me who i am today. i know that i am loved and that there is hope and healing. i now have a clear sense of purpose.

writing has been one of the methods by which i have found healing. it has become a form of therapy for me; by expressing my thoughts and feelings in words, i don’t have to keep them inside my head, and i don’t have to fight alone.

that said, my intent is for my blog to serve two purposes:

first, to reach the audience of those who have gone through similar experiences as i have and/or have felt the way that i have, my words are for you, so that you may know that you are not alone in this battle. i promise, it does get better, although it is probably difficult, if not impossible, to believe that now. i not only want to convey my own struggles and imperfections through my writing, but also the sources of hope that i have found through the fight.

second, to reach the audience of those who have not been directly exposed to the those of us who struggle or have struggled with mental illness(es) and/or suicidal thoughts, my words are also for you, so that you may know that there are people around you that really do feel this way. thus, my blog is not a call for help; it is a call for action. neither prevention nor recovery can take place without a solid support system for the individual suffering.

i don’t intend for my blog to be a diary of my current thoughts from day-to-day. rather, it is a platform for my scribbles and musings (based on both past and present experiences and ideas) that can hopefully serve both of the aforementioned purposes. some of my writing may come across as rather dark or depressing, even concerning. i want to make a disclaimer, that i am healing and am not now at risk of suicide. i have a support system to catch my back if ever i start to fall again. part of what has helped me become more raw and honest with those closest to me – about my thoughts, feelings, and experiences – has been through writing so openly.

one other note: some of what i write about is not necessarily even from my thoughts about my own life, but rather, are my thoughts about news or statistics i have read. a particularly dark post may have been inspired, so to speak, by a heartbreaking story. a particularly hopeful post may have been inspired by recent knowledge of a suicide survivor’s story. any which way, i mainly want my blog to be helpful, inspiring, and informative to those who read it. it may not always be bright and encouraging, but it is my hope that, in reading my words, you will see the world and the people in it a little differently than before.

every forty seconds, a person chooses to commit suicide. every forty damn seconds. i want more than anything to help prevent that. i see my blog as my first step forward towards that goal.

thank you to those who care about me, and my writing. i would not be who i am today without each of you.

blessings. ~