I woke up this morning with the sun seeping through the blinds of the window of my room, casting light upon my bare arms and begging my motionless body to start the day. I looked at the clock: 5:03am. Just like clockwork. Every morning I wake at the same exact time. With eyes swollen, 7 waiting texts and a dull pain crashing like a wave against my ribs and reaching for my heart, I blinked twice, considered the combat of actually getting up, but instead rolled over and allowed the silence of surrender to lull me back to sleep for the next 2 hours. I finally got out of bed long enough to think about the food that I was unable to eat, opening the fridge and closing it three times, as if suddenly I was going to have the urge to cook breakfast, customarily answer the routine agenda of questions and speak about how my prolonged stay in my room was because I couldn’t peel my lethargic eyes away from reading Wild, by Cheryl Strayed. But less than an hour after dragging myself from bed, I quickly showered, changing clothes three times in anticipation of seeing her and here I am again, wearing a gray sweater and yoga pants, my cold feet rubbing against the undersides of the comforter, searching for warmth, my mind callous and my heart simultaneously weighed down by emotions made of lead. After three hours back and forth between running errands and running home, in hopes that I could wish her here, I gave up any hope that she was actually coming.
But this is OK.

I’ve been through it before – the ups and downs of life that coincide with anxiety and insecurity. The dead and depleted physical feeling that a racing mind sometimes yields and the pesky subconscious voice that insists my lack of productivity for the day must mean something far graver than reality. The difference between my past and my present is my ability to separate a bad day from a bad life, a temporary relapse from a complete mental breakdown.

This is just a day.

This is just a day I will spend in susceptibility. This is just a day I decide I am willing to embrace my feelings instead of letting them pile up and rot in the dim cracks of my mind. This is just a day.

My heart never swells without reason and my mind never taunts me without motive. To forget the circumstances and blame my current emotions on psychology is counterproductive – there’s a clear connection between what’s going on in my life and the way I feel, and undeniably there’s a solution. The road to inner-peace has proven itself to be much more convoluted and arduous than I’d before thought, but it’s not impossible.

I’m struggling with change – changes happening within myself, a sudden loss of something that never really had a chance but could’ve been so incredibly beautiful. I feel robbed of a life that I desperately wanted with her but will never have because of someone that I used to be. I’m confused because if we grow and learn through our experiences and become better than our past self, isn’t that what life is all about? I was presented last night with a jolt of nostalgia and heartache that challenged feelings inside me I hadn’t felt in years. I cut my Saturday night short as heartache gripped me, sending me straight to bed, my eyes wet with tears. Longing for a life with her that I lost before it even began and uneasiness about the future engulfed me like a flame, and feelings I’d thought I’d left behind completely were standing in front of me, staring me in the face and begging me to crack.

But intensity isn’t cracking and anxiety isn’t failure. These are merely perishable moments that, when dealt with correctly, pave way to clarity and understanding. I know what it’s like to hide from my feelings just as well as I know what it’s like to let them define me, and neither have ever brought me anything but more pain. To grow, we must embrace these feelings, allow ourselves to be raw and present in our wavering sentiments, and not to blame ourselves when we let ourselves feel. This is just a day.

This is just a day.

JMS