Through

Author's Note: Similar to "All the Ways," this is quite notably one of the most vulnerable and personal things I've ever written for the same reason. This is a sister poem to it.

Through

The darkest days

a cold winter night was one

I watched some events fall into play right in front of my face after a few texts
I made some phone calls where no one picked up
I remember the song I was streaming
I still hate that song like it's a bad omen
I began sobbing in the middle of my run
Then it turned to a panic where I couldn't breathe
which turned to me collapsing to the strange warmth of the turf of the football field
hoping the earth would hold me
swallow me
or bury me alive
then I left
running home talking to my brother on the phone
frantic
and desperate
I didn't want to live
I arrived home knowing I could terminate it all in seconds
I never told him that
he knew
I'll don't know how, but he did
he told a friend of mine, unknowingly to me
"Something's wrong. She's hurt."
he couldn't save me
but he tried

a more frigid winter day was another
I hit rock bottom the morning of an appointment
I couldn't keep my shit together
couldn't stop crying
even worse, it was almost Christmas
and I was very much all alone until I drove to my parents a few days later
I talked it out with my doctor
my counselor
I didn't want to talk to him
I just wanted to be around anyone who was familiar
I didn't care who
So I reached out to some friends
texted some
called some
even left a card on a porch of one, I believe
and no one,
no one was there for me.
I could still end it.
Who the fuck would even care?
After all, no one returned my calls, texts, anything.
I told my doctor counselor I wouldn't harm myself.
I said I was fine.

So instead,
I tried the antidepressant
I hated how it made me feel 
It made me numb 
I didn't feel like myself
I felt like a shell of a person who didn't exist anymore
I couldn't feel
I couldn't even cry
I went for a run that day too 
but
I couldn't run
My body was screaming at itself, devoid of life
so much heaviness
literal heaviness in my veins, concrete in my legs
but still I made an effort
I still was moving 

Somehow.

These were two of the lowest days of my life.
I know I've had others.
But these were the two worst.
I remember so many parts of them, most of which are not pleasant memories,
but I also recall this:
I trudged through.
Pushed through.
I tried.
I held onto some words I'd remembered from a friend. 
A promise I believed even in the tenebrosity.
I still threw on my layers, laced up my shoes, and I ran. 

How did I do that?
Any of that?
Is that resilience?
Strength?
Routine?
My last thread of hope?
Me still trying?
Part of healing?

Even years later, I honestly don't know.
My best guess is that maybe I was somehow still fighting--trying anything that might help me feel better.
Or maybe I just hate not working out that much.
I run no matter what the day brings.

Another guess is this: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...."

One word stands out in that line more than any other:
Through. 

Not around.
Not above.
Not running.
Not drowning.

I walk through the valley.

I walked through the valley. 
Past tense. 
And walked, not ran. 
It took time.


Through. 
Preposition.
"moving in one side and out of the other side of (an opening, channel, or location) [my depression]"
"continuing in time toward completion of (a process or period) [my depression]"


Through meant I wasn't staying. 

Through meant I went from a crawl to a saunter to a jog to a run to a full fledged sprint.

Through meant there was an end, an out, a mountaintop view that’s been so amazing now that I’m there. 

I made it out.

And I made it out, I made it through, more than alive.

All The Ways

Author's Note: this is quite notably one of the most vulnerable and personal things I've ever written because I'm not sure I've ever told anyone about this.

All The Ways  

When I was at my lowest,
I envisioned all the ways I could, I would, take my own life.

I obviously didn't,
but I still imagined them.

What would be the quickest?
The least painful?

A gun I didn't own, that I could quickly get from Wal-Mart.
A car accident.
Letting my car run in the garage.
Drowning.
Pills.
Praying to God to take me in my sleep because I'm a coward.
Or maybe I wasn't a coward.
Maybe I knew that wasn't what I wanted.
Or maybe I did and just wanted a divine intervention;
for God to exist--to prove, to show himself real by taking me, by answering my prayer.

Maybe I'd leave a note.
Maybe none.
Maybe I'd take my dog with me.
Maybe not.
Maybe I'd grasp something symbolic in my final moments.
Maybe not.

Is there a right way to kill yourself?

And when I brought such images to my mind,
I would cry even more,
sleep even less.
Wonder who even cared, who even loved me.
No one was reaching out to me, after all.
Fuck all the people who'd said they were really my friends, is how I felt, what I thought.

The loneliest place on earth? Thoughts of cessation while being alone.

I remember once my preacher father telling me how he'd read many suicide notes through the years and they all have a combination of this wildness and disconnectedness to them.
He told me he'd read ONE in his 65 some years of living that was from a person who didn't write that way.
One that was cohesive, made sense, had sound reasoning.
One.
I could write that way, I thought.

Who is the judge of our writing?
Only the living.

I tried to imagine my own funeral and how others would react or act at it.
Do we get to see our own funeral?
I've always believed so because most movies and books depict it that way,
but pragmatism and reality resounds: that's an unreal thought.
When you're dead, you're dead.
Right?
My imagination was so damaged by depression at the time that I couldn't even conjure up in my mind what that day might look like.
I couldn't capture possible feelings of others.
So far removed to even imagine empathy, pain, suffering, sadness.

How many things within me were crushed? Destroyed?

And this is the "darkest night of the soul" the sages speak of.
This is the "so far gone" that many find themselves in,
and in disbelief of the other cliche--seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.

A depressed person doesn't need cliches.
A depressed person needs anything that gives hope.
And I was hanging on to any ounce of hope I could muster.
Because everything was so, so awry.

All these ways I imagined a death,
I imagined my death,
yet all of the ways a person can come back to themselves was also simultaneously happening.

I was trying.
I was mending.
Being restored.

I wondered how a live person and a person who was once so full of life could feel so dead,
but I was coming alive again--a seed buried through the most stark and bitter Winter.
Waiting on Spring like a hibernating, unassuming, unknowing creature.
Unaware of my healing, yet somehow longing for it.
A longing that existed, yes, but I'd yet to believe in.

But even the dead can, and will, come back to life--
more alive,
more vibrant,
more grateful,
more compassionate,
more confident,
more loving,
happier,
kinder,
incredibly stronger,
somewhat different,
and better.

And here I am,
all of those things and more.

Don't believe me?
Let me in or get close again,
and I'll show you all the ways.

Another Fleeting Thought...

A woman once told me I would mourn all of what I did not experience with you, but not at once.  
It will come in waves, she said.
I didn't understand what she meant.
But now I do.

Football and catch in the back yard.
Graduation.
A wedding day.
Baby powder and poopy diapers.
Your first step.
School picture day.
New clothes.
Innocent love.
Skinned knees.
Bike rides in the park.

I mourn the past and future and even the present.
My heart breaks.

I see you.

I feel you, though you're not here.

Too Little, Too Late

The alcohol went down easy when I wasn't around.

Within the first month, I knew it but didn't know it.
I'm not an idiot; I'm pretty intelligent, actually.
It's just that hindsight is always 20/20. 
You're just hanging out with friends, no big deal, I thought.
And you were fine; not mean or anything bad.
I hadn't figured everything out.
I questioned it in the back of my mind the first time you told me you loved me.
You can't love me already, I thought, but then again, I really liked you a lot by that time.
According to your friends, you were drunk and just saying the words on the phone instead of in person.
Within the same week, you told me love was dumb.
I know it was a joke a friend told you, but I think you thought love was ehhh when we met.
Maybe not, but you said later on you shouldn't have been with me.
I was ready.
So I stayed.

Probably stayed far too long.
But things were so, so good before they turned south.

There are red flags I'll look for from now on in others.
But red flags or not, I'm sure as hell not looking for anyone right now,
regardless of what anyone believes.

And that has nothing to do with you.
It's a choice I made for me, concerning only me.

When we were together, everything was wonderful.
You never drank.

It was when we were apart that you were someone else. 

Or maybe you were someone else with me? 

You were cute, sweet, educated, outdoorsy, put together.
And I did love you.
So much.
We had so much fun, saw so many places.
Bike rides, stealing kisses, and morning light and mountains, hikes and hammock naps), slow dancing and small towns, making the day up as it came in, making love the second we saw each other each time, back roads and everything slow and relaxed everywhere we went, camping and cooking together, and walking the dogs.
I miss a lot of those things about your company.
Most of the time things were so pleasant.
Until they weren't.
I was gentle with you.
I supported you, pointed to you to get help, which you did get.
But it was too late for us, sadly.

Too little, too late.

The old saying goes "Hurt people, hurt people."
And I know we both hurt each other while we were together,
but you hurt me to the core because you were dying inside and took it out on me with your words--
usually when you were drunk on the phone.
You were never like that in person.
It took me months to see that in you--your hurt.
I hurt for you once I found out that you had become depressed, once you admitted it.
My love for life, my love for you, wasn't enough for you or us, and I knew it.

But I stayed to make sure you wouldn’t harm yourself.
You didn't love yourself, or at least fell out of love with yourself, which means you fell out of love with and couldn't properly love me.
At your rock bottom, I know you wanted to die.

In fact, I was sure one night you’d end up dead,
your mom, dad, or sister calling me after the deluge to tell me you’d been drinking and driving. 

I told you this fear. 

I told you why I wasn’t leaving.
I was scared to leave you.
I didn't want you to be or feel alone.
And it wasn't a dealbreaker.
"I'm staying, not to save you, but because need someone in your corner."
I'm not sure you wanted that.
You never said that, but you didn't seem to want help from anyone.
You didn't know what you wanted yet.

Even me caring, that didn’t change much, but you did start seeking help.
Finally.

You had to find it within yourself to want to change.
I knew this.
I'm not here on this earth to fix anyone.

I didn't try to save you, which I told you, and you appreciated that, at least.
And I knew what else was coming, and all at the same time.

You then said you needed to break up for a while to focus on yourself. 

I was ok with that, even though I didn't want that deep down. 

Fix yourself, I told you, then down the road we will try again, you said.
The latter, wasn't true.
I wanted another chance, and I told you that.
Because after you left, I felt like I was walking away shaking my head.

I felt like it was all my fault. I was to blame.
I wasn't.
Things just happened.
I knew the truth, regardless.

The alcohol went down easy for you, but forgiveness was and is harder to swallow.
I forgave you and asked for that in return.
I meant every word.
You said you'd forgiven me.
I heard your words, but I'm not sure I'll ever believe them.

But this:

Beyond any hurt, any drink, anything that happened, there are more important things.
FAR more important things.

The most?

This: ears later,

I’m glad you found what you needed.
Your peace.
Your sobriety.
THAT was late, but not too late.
You're never too late for a second chance at life.
You saved yourself; that's what matters.
And I'm glad you're alive.