Here’s To Hoping

CW: Depressing stuff

I’m back to over sharing on the internet, because it’s midnight and I have thoughts.

It’s been an interesting experience being me these past few weeks. Well, I don’t know if you can say interesting, but more so depressing. My mental health hit a new low and it’s affecting so many parts of my life. 

Just last week, I had left campus in tears, not for any particular reason. I decided to walk to the furthest bus stop in the city, because I needed those extra minutes to think, but I only made it to a nearby hill before I sat in the grass and cried. I will admit that it was a good experience to be sitting and watching the world, with headphones in and music blasting away the previous few hours. I felt like I was merely a spectator of the universe. I, as a person, did not exist; neither did the world. We were just two lonely products of a cruel deity’s imagination. 

But oh the pain I felt. 

Every rooftop I laid eyes on came with an incessant urge to feel its altitude. Although I found comfort in the ground beneath me, I would feel bliss to watch it get closer. Staring at the city meant staring at hundreds of ways out, and heaven knows I was tempted to take just one. Clearly I didn’t. I just went home and let the cycle continue. 

I don’t think I’ve told any of my friends how miserable it is in my mind. No, I’d rather spare them the worry. Yet still they come through for me when I least expect it.

Yesterday, while I was at home to avoid going to my classes, I got a call from a friend. He told me to check my mailbox. In it was a package addressed to me, filled with three patches to start a battle vest. He didn’t know what I’ve been going through, he didn’t know I was begging the universe for a sign to stay, but there it was. I cried when I hung up the phone. I held my head in my hands, sitting across from the three patches, and I sobbed away that pesky thought that I was alone in the world, because I wasn’t. I still don’t know if he’s aware that the little gesture saved me in a sense. I hope he reads this and finds out. 

It stirred up a whole new train of thought inside me. My friends do care, they always have. I didn’t have to go through anything alone, for the rest of my life. I have a place to stay. So although I still have a lot to fight through in my head, it sparked up a new sense of hope. One day I’ll be older and I’ll be free. I’ll see my friends after a long day of work, we will chat over a glass of wine, we will shriek with laughter, I’ll attend their weddings, they’ll attend mine. It will be good. Maybe it’s not as ambitious of a future that I used to have, but it’s one I will always hold close. And it’s the one I need right now. 

I will get through this. I will get better, if it’s the last thing I do.