How am I doing?
One day I’m going to look back on this time and remember how hard it was and thank past me for surviving.
But when you’re on the ground level living through a rough patch, it can be pretty overwhelming.
I reach the end of the day, and I’m lying in bed and I feel that familiar heaviness set into my chest — as I contend with all the public and personal tragedy I’m sifting through — and I know that yes, I’ve made it through this day that’s ending, but that tomorrow I will wake up and there will be another day to deal with.
There will be more emotional work, more heartache, more dragging my semi-unwilling carcass through all the Good Girl Shit that needs doing (chores, writing, emotional support of others, cooking, exercise, dieting, etc.) because slipping into darkness leads nowhere I actually want to go long term.
There will be more making the choices that I should make, even though a significant part of my heart screams that it wants to give up.
But I don’t.
Instead, I drag myself through choices I’ll appreciate later. I leave a trail of words in my wake. Yes, there are always blog posts of course. But now there are also slipstream mysteries I’m working on that give me an opportunity to finally say everything I wanted to tell people all of these years but wasn’t brave enough to come out and say.
I do it even though it sucks. Even though I’m exhausted. Even though I sometimes don’t understand how I do it, I do it.
Because the alternative is worse. And because I know one day I’ll look back and appreciate that I did it.