Category: Courage

For the past three weeks I have been out of a job, waiting for a new chapter to start. Home alone, navigating bouts of planning, clenched jaw moments, boredom, looking truth in the face, looking away, carrying out hard conversations in my head or on paper, saying goodbye, saying hello, surfing this messy middle as best as I could.

One of the most dangerous traps that we all fall into (but that is poison to people suffering from mental illnesses) is comparing our insides with other people’s outsides. Especially to the snippets we see of other people on social media.

I would instantly work to dim all the lights that had lit up inside me for the fear of a short circuit that would burn the entire network down. I would stare around me for the comet ready to strike me. I would duck and cover.

Life doesn’t take place in dark corners, I have learned. It takes place in the middle of the music, the pouring rain, the dance, the craziness of plans changing from one hour to another. You just throw up in a bush, get back on the horse and gallop onwards. Always onwards.

I thought it was a good idea at the time, is a great phrase that perfectly encapsulates the experience of humanity – we are different every single day, every minute of our lives teaches us something and thus changes us.