New Found Meaning

I've been going through my old pieces of writing, most of which is poetry and I stumbled upon this poem that I wrote for a contest and ended up getting published.

Having reread it now, I see the words in a new light. There's a different meaning the message and I find myself seeing the piece in the voice of my light who I coincidentally didn't know when I wrote this piece. I hope that people can see a message hidden in the words and that they, like me, are given the strength the rip open the curtains to see what's important and not always visible.

The Light

rip open the curtains

let the truth unfold

bring out all your skeletons

i wish you could see

all that life can become

that you could erase your mistakes

rip open those curtains

leave the past behind

move to where the weather is warmer

i wish you could see

how much the pain can dissipate

yet taking the world for granted constantly

rip open those curtains

stop watching the storm draw near

but look at the stars hiding behind the clouds

i wish you could see

make your life worth living

because you mean something to me

i wish you could see

rip open those curtains

to find the light in the darkness

A Poem

This is a poem that I recently wrote, it's about the storm of emotional distress. I hope the message is heard and fought.

The Storm

You wait for the wind to come,

the cold creeping on you

with every shiver.

You wait for the rustling leaves,

the small distinct noises

the whisper of more to happen.

You wait for the clouds to darken,

the cracks of light disappear

into pools of gray and black.

You wait for the thunder,

as it rattles your bones

praying that it doesn't break you.

You wait for the rain,

frozen standstill in the frigid air

daring it to pull you under.

You wait for lightning,

eyes closed and soul bare

hanging onto the light.

You wait for the storm to come,

knowing there is no escape

you stay and fight. 

How to Believe

Believing isn't easy. It doesn't come naturally.

We don't believe in what we can't see or touch because we equate it with not being real if it’s not physically there. But we believe in emotions. Kind of a conundrum right? At least to me it is.

I'm one of those backwards people where I believe in many things that I cannot see or touch but I don't believe in my emotions. I don't understand words like faith and hope, their existence is unrealistic and fairy tale like to me. Although I know I’m not the most biased when it comes to these things. My depression has forever changed me. It’s given the world a new light and me different eyes, nothing is truly as it was.

I don’t believe that it’s possible to be happy again. I don’t know how to have faith in life or to believe that good things can still happen. I don’t have hope that I can be better than I am, that I can be who I wish I was. I just don’t.

But he does. He has faith and hopes and believes for me, and in me. It’s one of the many many reasons why I need him – because he believes in the things that I cannot. He believes in making me smile and laugh. He believes that if I try really hard good things will happen, that I can get better and one day be truly and rightfully happy. He believes in all things that he cannot see and on my haphazard good days, I think he'll one day make me believe too. 

I'm facing my demons and being plagued by their darkness, the journey is nowhere near over and that makes me partial to anything that isn't damaging and painful. I've been told there are moments where light can be so wondrous that its blinding but for those moments to happen I have to let them come. I have to ease my fear and allow the good things to change me and change my life.

I know I have a long way to go when it comes to having faith and hope, in anything. I know that I want to believe and that one day I will.

I just have to take it one thing at a time.

Step 1: Believing in someone who's hurt me. 

Step 2: Letting him show me the light beyond the darkness. 

Step 3: Believe that happiness is real and will be mine one day. 

Rock Bottom

Rock Bottom. 

To most it’s just an expression but its more than that to me and to a lot of people out there. 

Rock Bottom - it’s not fun or glamorous. It hurts and it leaves a scar, it might all be mental but trust me when I say that it’s a moment that will be with you for the rest of your life. A freeze-frame of the worst moment(s) of your entire life that will be kept on replay for when you're down and need that extra kick of horrible reminders. Unfortunately, I have a few of those moments that I know I will never be able to forget, in fact I made one of them just the other week. 

For those of you who actually read my blog you know about Thomas and our problems and for those of you who don't here's the recap. 

Thomas was the most important person in my life. I've been dealing with my depression for six years and it never got easier, until I met him. He thwarted my plan to kill myself and became my best friend practically and almost literally overnight. There isn't a day that went by that I did't thank my lucky stars that we found each other and he saved me, and that he continued to do so every day after that. It's been two years that he has worked his magic and made my life better but we were having some issues. Some that he didn't exactly know about until it was too late. Our friendship had turned complicated and like my usual self I fooled myself into thinking I could handle it until I couldn't anymore. I was getting hurt and it was by Thomas, someone who I didn't think could or would hurt me. In my heartbroken state I told him about all these problems, my pains and concerns but no matter what he said I was still in pain and I blamed him for a lot of things. In a moment of misery and anguish, I ended our friendship. 

It's been two months since we last talked and I'm not surprised that things have turned to shit. My life has been in shambles and hanging by a thread. I believed that every moment since I kicked my best friend out of my life was a consistent rock bottom but I was wrong. 

I hit a true and unfortunately familiar rock bottom just the other week. In a very real, harsh moment of despair I took a long hard minute contemplating why killing myself was a really good idea. I made a list of pros and cons and it really scares me how many pros I could think of and how there was only one con. It utterly terrified me how this list held me fate and it wasn't illustrating one that would continue for much longer. This isn't the first time that I had thought about hurting myself but it was the first time in the last two years that I had given it serious thought. I wasn't just thinking about it in a passing moment or fit of sadness, I wasn't considering it anymore - no, I was quickly moving into the planning phase before I even finished the list. All those pros swept me away and were doing a very fast job of pulling me under and I wasn't even fighting it. Until I thought of a con. 

You're probably wondering what my one con was against a long long line of pros. It was the guy I so forcefully pushed away, the one who hurt me. It was Thomas. I was still mad at him and all that he did to me but in that moment I needed him to save me. I never stopped thinking about him and all the wonderful things he did in my life, and some days I convinced myself that the good outweighed the bad but for two months I let the bad ruin the good. 

Then came rock bottom and the list. Then I realized that there was enough bad in the world and in my life that I needed to accept and appreciate the few good things that happened. 

I reached out to Thomas the next day. My fear for those pros showed me just how much I needed to be saved and there was only one person I knew who had done that before and I had to see if he could do it again. I'm not mad at him anymore and I think I'm close to completely trusting him again. Slowly but surely he is making me smile and giving me reasons to laugh. He's saving me again and I hope that one day we can return to friendship we once had or possibly an even better one. 

He's my light again and this time I'm going to share my future problems with him in hopes that we can work together to fix them and avoid what happened last time. 

I hit rock bottom and although it was a terrifying experience I am glad that it happened because it gave me the push I needed to find someone to lean on, someone to save me and give me more things to add to my con column.  

The Big Move

It can be emotional or physical and sometimes even both.

My Big Move is mental.

It's the tipping point where I push away the most important thing in my life. My light. I've mentioned him before and if you read My Disappearance post then you know my light isn't just a thing but a person who saved me from myself. He saved me and I've recently realized that he's been hurting me. I'm broken, fragile, and that causes me to be wary and to be afraid. Us, our friendship was life changing for me and it kept me together more than I ever thought possible. It also helped that he had a girlfriend for the first year or so that I knew him. There wasn't any pressure for more, he just wanted to be my friend and I wanted to be his. Somewhere along the way I started falling for him, I had this massive crush on him and it was okay, I welcomed my crush and accepted that he had a girlfriend knowing that my crush would fade and our friendship would remain. Until he told me they had broken up and that he had feelings for me. Strong ones - that had been brewing for quite some time. My simplistic crush turned into a lot more then I could handle but being me, I played it off as something I could handle until I couldn't anymore. His feelings kept growing and he told me so, my fear and fragility kept growing too. Our friendship was becoming very complicated and more than I could grasp. When he almost uttered his affections for me - in the form of the illustrious 'L' word- is when I told him about my fears. At this point I was still living in Brockville and he was living here in Ottawa, I made him promise me that he wouldn't say that word until we were living in the same town and there was a relationship that welcomed that word. I couldn't handle the thought that he loved me and I knew that saying the word out loud would do me more harm then good. I still can't handle it. But that doesn't stop him from pushing and probing and doing whatever it takes to let me know that he wants more. I know he wasn't doing this on purpose but it was all I heard every time we talked, in the moments of silence I felt his impatience. I brushed it all off as best as I could, I gave him what I thought I could handle. I called him handsome and darling and honey and I meant it every time I said it  - but it meant more then that to me, calling him those things was a huge step and regardless of how much I think he deserved to hear it, I wasn't ready - and I held his hand because he wanted to hold mine, even when I was uncomfortable. I gave him pieces of me, let him have what he wanted because I didn't think I deserved exactly what I needed. I have done this my whole life - giving people what they want with no consideration to whether or not I wanted it too or could handle it. I promised myself a long time ago that I would stop doing this, that I would listen to what I needed and wanted and do those things before that of someone else. Clearly I didn't.

I gave him pieces of me and what hurts the most is that I knew that's what I was doing. I let him have his way on a lot of things even when I knew it was wrong, awkward and uncomfortable for me. I let him because I trusted him and I wanted him to be happy.

He's the guy who saved me and I owed him my life. So I compromised my happiness and well-being. I let him hold my hand. I let him hurt me. I let him. Yet I am so angry with him. I'm angry because he is the guy I trusted. I don't trust anyone but I trusted him. He's the only person I believed when he made promises, because I thought he would always keep them. I told him all my secrets. He knew about every skeleton in my closet and every little thing that a very important and special person should know about you. I gave him everything that I could and then some. He knew all about my problems, my ups and downs, just how much I had been through and what I had survived. He had the map to my destruction - all the power.

I gave him power - and somehow it got used against me.

I don't know what's going to happen next and I'm not even sure that I understand what is happening right now. I am in pain and crumbling inside without my best friend to help me. I don't know how to live without my light but I know I can't live with what he has done to me.

The future is unknown and the present blurred. All I know is that he can't just be the guy who broke me. My Big Move is here and seemingly incomplete.

The Approaching Curve

The Curve.

Every day has a curve. They range from a minor hiccup to a full scale tornado. They can appear to be as one thing and end up another. You never really know which it is until it's there, unavoidable - without escape.

The escape. We all wish it came before the storm. We all wish it came but it didn't and it never will. The only form of escape we have is in the aftermath. Should we let it consume us and bury us down in the trenches? Or will we fight the wreckage and threats against us? Our fight or flight instincts guide us, they can unknowingly help us or directly hurt us.

The Curve.

Seeing that is coming and not being able to change your course or avoid the colossal destruction that is threatening to run you over. We want to run, we want to go as fast as our legs and breaths can take us but we can't. Despite our overwhelming need to run, we are frozen in our places.

It's the fear. It's the unknown. It's everything and nothing all wrapped into a disfigured and undecipherable moment. Our flight instinct tells us to get the hell out of there yet our body does not comply. We scream. We cry. We pray. Flight does not come.

The Curve.

It's pain. It's madness. It's absolute desperation. Only one option remains. To try and survive, to fight. Gathering all our courage and all our will to continue existing, the battle is near and hope cannot be completely lost. We put up our fists. We take a strong stance. We dare to live. The Fight has arrived.

The Curve.

It challenges our very being and we must stand tall to prove that it is worth it. That we are worth it. We determine our worth - by our actions, by our words. Without our drive, our power and our infinite breaths we wouldn't be who we are. It is our strength and lack thereof that we can amount to our true place in life.

The Approaching Curve can make or break us - we must decide which one it will be and make it happen.

My Disappearance

This is my out, in many many ways.

My out comes in the form of words, sentences, exclamations. It used to stay with me, circling the drain but never being flushed away.

This is my attempt. I need it out because I don't know what might come next. What ever it may be terrifies me to the bone.

I have been dealing with my depression since I was fourteen, only I didn't know what was happening until about seventeen.  It wasn't just mood swings, excessive sleep, too many negative thoughts, always mentally and physically tired, irritability and short tempered, loss of interest, hopelessness and helplessness.  Then it had a name and a face. But I was still in the dark. Not only did I not tell or want to tell anyone about it, I didn't know how to deal. Most days I still don't. I believed distance, from who I was, my friends and family was the only way to keep us all safe from the black hole threatening to take me under. I shut out the world until I couldn't find my way around anymore, there was no such thing as up and down, left to right. No - it became a cloud of hate and sadness and madness. I was engulfed.

I still am. Only now I know which way is up. I am still in that cloud, surrounded by darkness but some days I get really lucky and there's this speck of light that pokes through. It beckons me, calls my name and tries with all its might to catch me. This light is Thomas.

Thomas came to me out of nowhere and every day I am grateful for all that he is. When I met him at eighteen, I was a lot worse then I am now. I was hellbent on ending my life. I had tried once before, with over the counter sleeping pills and alcohol and when it didn't work I chalked it up to the world giving me a second chance with a better life. I was wrong, life got a lot more worse. Hence my planning on trying a second time, and making it stick. I had a week until my planned date. A whole seven days that became filled with as much conversation as I could get. I met him through a friend (who was his girlfriend at the time), it was random and magical. We spent the wee hours of the night and far into the morning talking. Simply talking because that's what I wanted. I wanted, needed some who could listen, someone I could talk to and share my secrets with. There wasn't such a person in my life, until Thomas came along. He talked to me, for endless hours. I never once mentioned my depression - I didn't need to, He dulled it with his quips and countless smiley faces. We both shared, some important things and a lot of little nothings. I didn't tell him, not because I didn't want to even though I kind of did, no I didn't share simply because I didn't think of it until after I had fallen asleep. The first good, restful and peaceful sleep I had had in years. That's what he gave me in the span of eight or so hours: amazing conversation, a temporarily dulled darkness and sleep. Three wondrous things I never thought would happen.

Seven days later, I reconsidered my plan. Here I had met a guy who wanted to be my friend. He wanted to hear my problems and provide solutions. He made it his mission to make me smile and laugh. I believed there wasn't anything he couldn't do. Here I am two years later, he still does everything in his power to make me smile; my complete and utter happiness is his true goal and I trust him not to stop until it is achieved. That being said, it wasn't all unicorns and rainbows after I met him. Yes, I don't know where I would be without him and I certainly don't plan on finding out but these last two years took a lot of work. I fought as hard as I could every day to stay in what little light I could find.

I'm still fighting.

Every damn day I wake up and think of three reasons while living another day is worth it. Three things, simple enough right? For the average, unaffected person sure. But not me, not a lot of others I presume too. Three things sounds like a billion to a girl whose struggling to keep living. It's impossible. I haven't been able to think of three things, two years of trying and the closest I get is with a bullshit number two and some days I would count it. I haven't for a while. I still try for those three reasons, in hopes that one day I might actually find them. But for now? I've got one reason and that's all it takes to get me through the day and to tomorrow.

Thomas. He has been my number one reason for two years now and with every thought I know he's subtly pulling more and more light into my cloud.

I dare to think that he'll succeed, in fact I count on it most days.

Thomas is stopping my disappearance, keeping me close to the surface and helping me fight my way up for air.