I stood in the rain for a minute today. It’s cold. Close enough to freezing that tonight will likely be a heavy snow. But for a minute, the rain made me forget I was in Utah. I forgot that I am depressed. I forgot that tomorrow I may be broke. I forgot that I am homesick and for a second there was this joy that rain pounded on my scalp and kissed my lips. I closed my eyes and let the water ruin my mascara because for that instant I thought I was home.
It’s time to go home. Time to go back to Portland.
Ever since I decided not to go to New Zealand, and uncovered the primary reason I felt driven to go in the first place… I’ve felt a sense of release. That night after my post I slept for the first time in a year and a half where I didn’t feel a phantom itch between my shoulder blades. I didn’t feel the point of something indefinable pressing into the skin of my back, no ghost of something painful breathing on my neck.
It’s hard to believe it’s been almost two years since I got kicked out. Two years. In those two years I was so desperate to prove I could survive and so full of anguish, so full of the kind of pain that the death of a relationship brings – I didn’t trust myself to sit down. I didn’t know if I’d get back up. Even if it meant running as far as my jeep could go, or flying to the other side of the world I knew I had to stay in motion. I had to work full time and go to school at nights and volunteer for every challenge I thought might keep my eyes open – because I knew there was the very real probability, that if I stopped pushing, driving, striving, running… I would just stop – my heart might just give up.
Last week I stopped.
I sat.
And my heart is still beating.
There’s a freedom in this knowledge. A calm before the storm. I know this depression is temporary – it’s the last convulsion of a two year battle to let go, to gain emotional stability and to understand acceptance. It’s time. And with that knowledge comes the release of all that I’ve gripped for dear life. All that I’ve clung to in an effort to stay ahead of myself, to outdistance my fear, outpace my loss.
It’s time to collect stillness, gather my thoughts allow my body to catch up to my brain, and chart a course for what I want. This will be the first honest destination, I think, since I began the BlissQuest, because I’m now ready to choose a goal I want and charge toward it. I’m done running from what I don’t want. I’m tired of pulling crazy Ivan’s on my fear based decisions.
I think for the next couple of weeks I’ll enjoy the holidays with my family and friends and relish the first break of freedom from my pain since that morning when my life fell apart. My first Christmas without anxiety, or loss or desperation. That’s a pretty damn cool gift.
A Christmas of freedom, and a new year that’s as raw as a blank sheet of paper. The possibilities are endless.
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