right now, it’s monday! the sky is full of rainclouds but the sun has a window through - the world is stuck halfway between golden hour and a thunderstorm. i have finished my 3 year university experience similarly sandwiched between polarising points like these - i have been uncontrollably miserable and outrageously happy for most of my life. i’ve been ricocheting my way around earth for 21 years!
mental health is personal, and complicated. for a long time, i thought the real me was a very raw, chaotic person who was on fire on the inside. i am now starting to remember that the real me likes to play farming video games for 8 hour stretches. mental illness is strange because it’s like a verruca, or a tick bite, and a part of it stays buried in you even when you think you’ve got most of it off. i’ve spent a lot of my life wondering if i’m ‘better yet’, convincing myself i am when i’m not, and lathering up bad days with alcohol
i’ve probably still got ways to go. i’m on a slope tilted upwards.
i’ve learnt how to love from my mum. she has spent a lifetime trying to make my day brighter. she cuts hearts out from colourful card to give me, writes me notes, slices up banana for my breakfast so it looks a little nicer on the plate. she has loved me so much and i’ve learnt to love myself from that.
i’ve learnt that i’m not as extroverted as i pretend to be. i’ve learnt that i’m bad at changing bedsheets. i’ve learnt a lot of academic stuff too, i promise
some of my medication gives me side effects. like, oddly, vivid dreams. one that’s not listed in size 5 font that i can’t really cry anymore. nonetheless, the other day, i bawled in the car because ‘rock n roll suicide’ by david bowie came on. and it was sunset. and i was in a car with people i love. and i was happy. and i thought about all the nights i’d spent thinking there was no way on earth i could make it til the morning and i’d listened to this song because once, in passing, my dad had told me it meant a lot of him in the saddest times of his life and i wanted to feel that too, like through generational osmosis it would have the same effect on me.
right now, it’s monday. the sun has gone down because i took a long time to coagulate this blog post into something readable. my dad is doing his open university work on the kitchen table, my mum is reading a book about a victorian-era introvert and reading me some good lines, and tomorrow i’m going to have another day of work at a job that makes me incredibly happy. i am falling back in love with writing for fun, with whimsical video games, with my own company
yay for stardew valley, yay for chocolate oat milk, yay for the promise of summer
(cover photo creds to the gorgeous genius that is gemma koomen of gemmakoomen.com)
(title creds to walt whitman, you beautiful bastard)
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