Some days it is too damn hard to wake up.
And then to kick off blankets, sit up and rise.
It's comfortable here. In this red cloud, you think you're safe. If you stay here long enough, the day will pass and it will be time to sleep once more.
The floor is cold, the foot mat insubstantial and your feet hurt. You wonder if you should take a bath and postpone it as much as possible. That too, is such an ordeal. The soap, the shampoo, the many lotions and potions and silliness.
A comb passes through your hair and you pause. All this work has tired you. The blankets create a warm safe place and you willingly fold yourself into that.
The phone rings. Once, twice, many times. Whoever it is, is desperate for you. You turn over and shut your eyes. Draw the curtains, pull the blanket over your head and just breathe. If you do it slow and low, perhaps you'll feel better. Visualize, she'd said. Good air coming in, bad air going out. Visualize pain leaving you. Visualize meadows and lakes and waterfalls.
You do, you do. But you're terrified of water. And today, you feel like you're drowning. Looking up, you can see the surface as it closes in on you and darkness takes over.
Food is immaterial. It takes but little to nourish your body. It is not the one that needs healing. The heart and the mind, now there's a different story altogether.
Some days, poetry helps. You read your usual suspects. You write as often as you can, but even that is jagged and too raw. Music helps, streaming through your ears, voices soothe and elevate you to tears and just as quickly, let you down easy.
You live a double life. Work has to happen and it does. Compartmentalising is easy. Being committed helps. You give it your all. Just like you give this pain everything you've got.
The question of survival becomes paramount here. How can you get out of this blue funk?
As you ponder the question, cold fingers of deep hurt, stroke your arm and say, 'You don't want to. So just stay'. And suddenly, it is that easy.
And you do.
For now.
