To my broken friend
Dear friend
"does your breath work.
i know there is air entering.
and leaving you.
leaving you
but are you breathing.
are you alive.
is it working"
-Nayyirah Waheed
There are parts of my life i cannot properly recall. I know what happened but i cannot remember how i felt during that time as if the things that happened were not happening to me. There is a feeling of disconnect or detachment in these memories that make me think that maybe i wasn't really living at that time, as ridiculous as it sounds. There was a time in my life when i was only breathing in oxygen, but not really alive. I have memories of a time when i felt nothing, when the pain was so unbearable i had to switch off the feeling parts of my brain and just be.
In order to survive and make it through i had to stop feeling, hence why i can only remember blank, empty numbness. I had to pretend i was fine, that i was fighting and working when in reality, i was just sitting in this pit of despair. Waiting for something, anything to rescue me and give me purpose.
I remember feeling like the sun had not risen in forever and that the world was just grey. Despite the flowers blooming outside, the bright clothes i wore, the laughter i shared with people and all the motivational sermons i listened to i felt like the skies had turned to a depressing grey colour and that everything else in life was black and white, but only for me. So i tried hard to pretend i could still taste the summer and feel the sun even when the only thing i felt was this permanent lump in my throat that would only dissolve when i cried myself to sleep at night.
I'm mentioning all this because I'm not in that place anymore. I miraculously got out and I'm grateful that every breath i take now has a purpose and that i do not take in oxygen just so i can drift in purposelessness and pain. I'm writing because maybe you're in that place, of pain and nothingness. Or maybe the world has lost it's colour and living no longer has that sweet taste of contentment. I'm writing to let you know that you and i are no different from each other. I know pain and you know pain therefore, I'm on your side. But i have no secrets or pro tips to happiness. All i can say is that i've been there before and i made it out.
You will make it out, because this is what life is. It's falling a few times then rising a couple more. It's taking a few moments out of your body to catch your breath sometimes. Or sitting still at the bottom of the gray pit until the will to live finds you again. It is not fighting or avoiding the pain because it will catch up with you. Always. Life is taking time out to pick at all the wounds you've ignored. Cleaning and dressing them properly. It is collecting the bits of you that you broke and can't restore, burying them in your heart in between mouthfuls of cold oreo ice cream with hot tears running down your face. It is walking out of the house one day and feeling surprised that you can feel the sun on your face and see all the colours. It is wondering when exactly you began to feel yourself smiling in the inside.
I'm writing not to tell you that life is hard because you know this already, but to let you know that although life is more than just the intake of oxygen, sometimes the best you can do is keep breathing, in that pit until life finds you and pulls you out.
Love yourself, forgive yourself. Enough to let my words comfort and envelope you in love.
Love💛Light🌻
S.C. Netha
Image: https://www.instagram.com/p/BghMtCzhQX1/
"does your breath work.
i know there is air entering.
and leaving you.
leaving you
but are you breathing.
are you alive.
is it working"
-Nayyirah Waheed
There are parts of my life i cannot properly recall. I know what happened but i cannot remember how i felt during that time as if the things that happened were not happening to me. There is a feeling of disconnect or detachment in these memories that make me think that maybe i wasn't really living at that time, as ridiculous as it sounds. There was a time in my life when i was only breathing in oxygen, but not really alive. I have memories of a time when i felt nothing, when the pain was so unbearable i had to switch off the feeling parts of my brain and just be.
In order to survive and make it through i had to stop feeling, hence why i can only remember blank, empty numbness. I had to pretend i was fine, that i was fighting and working when in reality, i was just sitting in this pit of despair. Waiting for something, anything to rescue me and give me purpose.
I remember feeling like the sun had not risen in forever and that the world was just grey. Despite the flowers blooming outside, the bright clothes i wore, the laughter i shared with people and all the motivational sermons i listened to i felt like the skies had turned to a depressing grey colour and that everything else in life was black and white, but only for me. So i tried hard to pretend i could still taste the summer and feel the sun even when the only thing i felt was this permanent lump in my throat that would only dissolve when i cried myself to sleep at night.
I'm mentioning all this because I'm not in that place anymore. I miraculously got out and I'm grateful that every breath i take now has a purpose and that i do not take in oxygen just so i can drift in purposelessness and pain. I'm writing because maybe you're in that place, of pain and nothingness. Or maybe the world has lost it's colour and living no longer has that sweet taste of contentment. I'm writing to let you know that you and i are no different from each other. I know pain and you know pain therefore, I'm on your side. But i have no secrets or pro tips to happiness. All i can say is that i've been there before and i made it out.
You will make it out, because this is what life is. It's falling a few times then rising a couple more. It's taking a few moments out of your body to catch your breath sometimes. Or sitting still at the bottom of the gray pit until the will to live finds you again. It is not fighting or avoiding the pain because it will catch up with you. Always. Life is taking time out to pick at all the wounds you've ignored. Cleaning and dressing them properly. It is collecting the bits of you that you broke and can't restore, burying them in your heart in between mouthfuls of cold oreo ice cream with hot tears running down your face. It is walking out of the house one day and feeling surprised that you can feel the sun on your face and see all the colours. It is wondering when exactly you began to feel yourself smiling in the inside.
I'm writing not to tell you that life is hard because you know this already, but to let you know that although life is more than just the intake of oxygen, sometimes the best you can do is keep breathing, in that pit until life finds you and pulls you out.
Love yourself, forgive yourself. Enough to let my words comfort and envelope you in love.
Love💛Light🌻
S.C. Netha
.jpeg)
There is beauty in sorrow that remains unexplored by the masses, and a deep sense of pleasure in melancholy that can never be offered by bliss.
ReplyDelete