DAILY EXISTENTIAL CRISIS
It feels like it’s the end of the world. The climate is changing and the ice caps are melting and the deaths never end and the sick never heal. It seems like nothing beautiful will ever be created again, only destroyed. It feels like governments have never been more corrupt, deaths more fruitless, hearts more blackened, and minds more ignorant. The end of one war means nothing until the start of the next. In the heat of the noon sun, it seems there has never been a hotter day. It’s terrifying, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s always the end of the world. That at any period in time, people have looked around and thought, this must be the end. Yet they survived. I suppose this means I will too.
THE WORST CASE SCENARIO
ISN’T THAT BAD
PAST PERFORMANCE DOES NOT GUARANTEE FUTURE RESULTS but living in constant terror is no easy way to live. My efforts have never failed me, so why do I remain under constant suspicion that this time will be different? Why do I maintain that if I lapse for even a second, everything will come tumbling down? I can’t survive this way. There is safety in lowered expectations, but no sense of ease. I need to start trusting myself. I need to recognize that my hands will not forget the motions they have done a thousand times before, and that even if I fumble, the world will not end. The sky could fall and I would still be here. I will get where I am going. I am on my way.
As a child I often fantasized about running away. I dreamed of slipping out the window and walking into the night until nothing felt familiar and I was free. As I got older, I realized running wouldn’t solve anything and I started fantasizing about death. Filling up the bathtub and going under the water and leaving every thing behind, for good. I’ve heard that survival is insufficient, but these days just surviving has become so hard. It’ll get better I’m sure, but I’m scared that one day I won’t be able to wait for the tide to turn. Lying on my bed, I want to sink into the mattress and let my bones become springs, my flesh soft cotton. Disappear without a trace. I tell myself that surviving is a victory. I fight everyday and I bear the wounds. My mother calls me weak, but I am still here. The sadness claws at me and the water beckons and I am still here. That will have to be enough.
I took the darkness from my heart put it on a canvas, hung it up, and told the world to look at my pain. They passed it without a second glance, but then again, what can they say? “How beautiful” “What a tragedy” “You sure felt that” I’d smile and thank them even as new darkness began to form.
DOES LOSING YOUR HEART MAKE YOU STRONGER?
WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF IT DID?
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