A Reflection on Resilience

 

 

 

 

What Happened?

 

I’m burnt out and I don’t wanna stain the world around. Memories of weekend sheninigans become distinct ink blots on my flesh and they were weighing down on me. The flames that fueled my drive are long gone, consumed by the break in February, the break from my friends, and the break from my life. My intention was not to become a struck match, useless and lacking. A snowy March becomes a dreary march and so can the humdrum that is life. I did not intend for getting out of bed in the morning to become  Hercules’ labors. I did not intend for a transparent brick wall to seal me away from the world and inside with the eye of storm. However, as these bitter winds naw at my flesh, bite it with fangs filled with frost, I know my intentions now. I’m gonna break free from my captivity and start a fire.

 

Before I could even lift my weary fists to beat the bricks that built my captivity, I had to realize what wore my fists down. I had to acknowledge what was making my every breath a task that weighed heavy on my lungs. No, it isn’t only the fumes of nicotine that help me escape my prison during my peaceful stolen moments. Those sticks that destroy my lungs are the only solace from the battleground that is my body. They just made assignments bearable and me able to complete them. I had to look through my addictions and vices because I realized that my habits weren’t draining my fists. But, that it was all in my mind.

 

My mind. My greatest weapon and arch enemy. Funny, how an organ confined between ya ears can make you feel like David and Goliath. The ant and the boot. The carrot and the stick. This organ between ya ears is the only difference between can and can’t. I had to realize that thoughts of inferiority and lack of confidence were killing me faster than anything I’ve ever smoked. I had to realize that I was the moist finger that smothered the fumes of my flames.

 

Pause, the fingers that put out your flames? Wasn’t your flesh burned? Didn’t a bubble of contained hurt and confusion stretch your skin and bring you pain?

 

Yeah, it did all of those things and more. The more was that it took my hope away. I took my hope away. Adventures in Commons became a personal quest for drive. I put out the spark that got me out of the bed in the morning and turned the four walls of my box size double from my secret haven to my looming comfortable hell. The place where I could do all of the things that I couldn’t became a humid hellhole. Drowning my body filled with hopes and raising a carcass of fears. I would fight to get to top, trying to wake up early, making lists of tasks for the day, doing anything possible to feel like less of a mule amongst stallions. Determined to leave my hell, I would raise my moist Palm to the door and turn the knob. Only to realize that I had only prepared to the dead. My lungs once filled with my aspirations were now bloated with the tears of self-doubt. Determined not to be runt of the litter, I left and joined the world: a carcass in disguise. I was a zombie.

 

A zombie? C’mon, bruh. I can’t believe you just called yourself the living dead. Do you even know what you just said? Shoutout to #cellhell, but to be dead is for all cells to stop growing and dividing. That is what death is. Is that what you were?

 

No, forgive my error. I wasn’t the living dead, I was dead inside. Hollowed out, ready to embalmed and laid low. And not in a lover’s embrace, comforting my body from the cruelty of the world and masochisms of myself. I was ready to just go. I was dead inside because my spark was gone. I took the key that started my car and threw it out the window. My road trip to my dreams went from being attainable through hard work to being impossible despite all odds.

 

Damn, what about your fire? What happened to your intentions? What happened to breaking free from your hell?

 

Fear put my fire out. Fear of success, fear of failure, fear of life. My fire was extinguished by my fear for my future because I wasn’t sure who I was and I didn’t recognize the person in the mirror. I didn’t identify with the dilapidated edifice that was my body. the place that would be my eternal home appeared now as a foreign prison. Before I broke down the walls, I needed to rid myself of fear.  I realized that I could only restore the glory of my flames by extinguishing my fear. Don’t get me wrong, fear can be a great motivator. But, there are two sides to every coin that are separated by ridges. The other side of fear Is the coin with ridges that cut your flesh as it falls from the sky to smack ya face. That Is bad fear. That is the fear that I had.

 

Damn, how did you move past it?

 

I got tired. I was tired of everything. Feeling inferior. Mulling through my days. Avoiding professors and old friends like the omnious omnipresent Bates’ Plagues. Just being sad and sad being me. It was a noxious toxic cycle that sent me away from the world. It sent me away from the beauty of life in which I found my strength. I lost my box of matches.

 

Your box? I’m confused. You made it seem like your match was the only match. Your only hope, the end all be all. Now, you have a whole box. You went through this entire phase of lamenting over the loss of a match and you have a whole box. Wtf?!?

 

Hahaha, my dear, then you’ve missed the purpose of this lament in its entirety. This lament chronicles an escape from that comfortable hell, an eternal reminder of where to never go. Its purpose was not to fuel the waterfalls that fell from my face at will. Its purpose was to find the source of the water and build a dam. To calm the waters and relax. The purpose of the lament was to remind me that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel and I’m the only person that can deliver me there. It was to remind me that even if I get lost and scared along the way, I can still one day feel the sun against my flesh if I remember that even when one match blows out, I have the strength in my fists to strike another.