My colors have all gone gray. The music of my heart has become a discordant cacophony, the instruments out of tune and fighting for first chair. Everything means a little less than it did the day before, and there is a churning, acidic
sense of doom that envelopes me like a too heavy blanket. Even the smallest tasks require a Herculean effort as I find myself faced with the prospect of yet another day of sameness.
And yet I persevere. I force myself to continue as though all is well; I go to work, I put on makeup, I do the dishes, I fold the laundry, I make love to my husband, I hang the Christmas decorations, I bake blueberry muffins and I laugh at your jokes as though my life could not be better. I am not in denial; I simply refuse to submit to the yawning, pervasive sense that nothing will ever be okay. My heart tells me it’s all a big fucking waste of time, but my head says that this too, will pass. All I really want to do is crawl into a hole and never come out, but I do not have the luxury of wallowing in my misery; too many people depend on me. And it is the knowledge that I am needed that holds me to this earth; that anchors me and
gives me strength to go on. It is the very routine that comforts me and gives me a reason to continue. It would be an
act of the most narcissistic selfishness to do otherwise. I must go on; I must act as though everything is fine. If I’ve
learned nothing else I’ve learned this: everything, no matter how horrid or wretched or seemingly insurmountable,
eventually wears away beneath the passage of time. Death, divorce, scandal and heartache; these are part of the miserable lot we call life, but even they are not static; our hearts heal and eventually scar and we must move on to more pressing matters.
But there is
beauty amidst the rubble; a song, the laughter of children, a kiss, the beauty of a sunset; the smell of fresh baked cookies, the triumph of friends; these are the things we must
cling to if we are to survive. We must walk through the shadow of the valley into greener pastures; we must listen for the sweet songs of angels among the howls of demons. We must stand down our deepest fears and refuse to cower before our most naked obsessions.
And now, though I trudge through a mire of despair and anguish and hopelessness, I cling to that which is good and pure and right. It is all I have left.
There will always be something; life is not perfect and the best we can ever hope to attain is contentment and a base understanding. We cannot be free of trouble, but we can learn to live with it; to take it as it comes and learn from our mistakes. And, in the process, we become stronger, more pliable, and compassionate.
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