I wonder what it must be like to
walk on water. To watch a ripple spread out from my foot with each step
forward. I’d stroll to the middle of a lake and bend down, watching the fish
swimming below. They’d be just as curious of me as I am of them, but I do not
believe they would be afraid. I would not disturb them and they would continue
on with their lives.
I wish I knew what it was like to
touch the sky. I’d move my finger through the air, watching the vibrations pulse
through the clouds. There’s a purity in the sky mixed with a mystery—an unknowing
that leaves so many speechless. I’d like to pass through a cloud, the
condensation enveloping my body.
More than anything, I want to keep
a sense of wonder whenever I look at nature. I’ve been struggling a lot lately,
readers. Not necessarily with those concepts, but with others things. More so
than anything, with memories.
Memories of where I was almost a
year ago.
When you’re recovering from
depression, there is always this constant worry in the back of your mind. You
remember what it was like to be plunged with darkness and fear. You remember the
state you were in and the inability you had to control your own emotions. April
2012 was one of the most difficult months I have ever lived through and I know
I got through it because of my writing. Back then, I was taking a class called
Writing as a Means of Self-Discovery and I spent a lot of time writing about
things I had not thought about in a long time. A very long time.
I owe a lot of my initial recovery
to that class—the whole reason I went back into therapy and moved back to
Colorado was because of what that class revealed to me through my own writing. I
spent a lot of time hiding from things that were too difficult to think about
before then. However, when your own writing—your own voice—is telling things
you had suppressed, you become forced to listen.
In total, we were given
seventy-five questions we had to answer throughout the semester. They could
range from something simple (recall your first vacation) to something more
thought provoking (what have you found the most hardest to forgive?). All of my
answers ranged anywhere from two pages to five. Recently, I’ve read over some
of the entries, searching for some sort of a connection to the girl I used to
be. She was suffering in ways no one person ever should. One of the most
pressing lines out of hundreds of pages was:
The
most burning question I have is this: Can someone make it so it no longer hurts
to be?
I never want to go back to that
place. I never want to be in that darkness again. I fight every day to keep my
depression at bay, something people may not always realize. I am still
struggling to keep a smile on my face and I still have a long ways to go in my
recovery.
If there is one thing that my
depression has taught me it is this: Those things you need out of life, those
things you used to write off as being a way to pass time, are the most
important things to your sanity.
I’ve already taken this concept and
allowed it to one area of my life: My major. Through that class, I realized
just how important it is to me to keep writing. Something, I must confess, I
have not been doing much of lately. I do not just keep this blog afloat, but I
write stories and fiction pieces. I create character backgrounds, settings,
mysteries, and dilemmas. I’ve been writing stories since I was a little girl,
only now I see them as what I hope to turn them into: Novels.
The next concept I’ve spent a lot
of time mulling over the last two months. When I was told I would not be able
to run for at least a year, I felt as if I was drowning. Running is much more a
part of me than I had ever realized in the past. I will never take exercise for
granted again and I have settled on a way to make sure it is always a part of
my life. It is now my goal to get my certification in personal training. I want
to work at a gym and help others improve their lives and find as much passion
as I have through exercise. I will continue writing, of course, only I hope to
be able to use this career choice as a way to pay for grad school at my current
university.
School, writing, and exercise will
always be a part of my life. They will always been the three things I turn to
when I feel as if the depression is threatening to take over. These are safe
ways for me to connect to myself and pull myself out of the darkness. School
and writing are currently the only two things at my disposable and that’s what
spurned this post.
I need to start writing again. I
need to feel that familiar connection through paper and text or paper and
pencil. More so than anything, I need to earn my title of “writer”.
Cheers!
