vulnerability

About this time last year, I had experienced my second round of withdrawal from my anti-depressants. The first time it occurred just after I started the medicine in about 10 years ago. It was accidental, it was reckless, and it was irresponsible. I won’t claim to know anyone else’s darkness, but what I know so well is my own darkness. As someone who has anxiety and depression, I always like to say that anxiety makes you feel alive, maybe too alive. Whereas depression makes you feel nothing. Where a body brimming full of energy once existed, was now a void trying to find purpose in taking a next breath. In my most recent experience with this darkness, caused by my withdrawal, I didn’t want to ask for help. What was the point? Yet, my drive to be vulnerable still somehow existed in the darkness. That vulnerability saved me, it saved me because it meant confiding in K that I was not okay. It meant long spans of silence spent sitting in my apartment, but not alone. The vulnerability grabbed Ks attention. The vulnerability saved me.

River

we were sitting along the river, your hand folded into mine. i caught a glimpse of your eyes, heavy in thought. i’ve come to read them well, knowing when you’re lost in something deep.

in that moment i asked, “what are you thinking right now?”…a penny for your thoughts. you paused and continued to think, perhaps ignoring my inquisition.

moments later, i engaged you again. you told me “i’m being corny, but it’s true”.

“the moment you asked me what i was thinking, i was thinking that what’s happening right now is everything that’s good about life.”

the air was chilly, the sounds of the water as it flowed upon the river rocks.

everything in that moment is what’s good about the world.

the foundation that once was

Memories become stagnant in the places we associate them with. The places hold weight because of the experiences that take place in these physical points of reference. With the passing of time, sometimes the meanings of the places begin to crumble and we realize that after all it was just a stack of bricks, four white walls, and a cracked foundation. The shared space that once symbolized the present, the truth, and all that we knew once again becomes another structure among a sea of others just like it. Giving power to the places that exist in our past, in our distant memories, is to imprison ourselves in a physical space that is no longer our reality, a physical space that no longer surrounds us. Let the memories slip and let the walls that once enveloped you come crashing down. The light will shine through the cracked foundation that once was.

Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep

apoemaday:

by Mary Elizabeth Frye

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush.
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.