People like to say it gets worse before it gets better. Well, just how much worse is it going to get? You know, so I can prepare myself for the inevitable tidal wave of all-consuming sadness that is about to engulf me.
It’s like every time I think I’ve hit rock bottom, the universe throws me a shovel and yells, “DIG!”, laughing cruelly at my foolish hope that maybe, just maybe, this would be my last night of soul-shaking crying. My last day of feeling lost and neglected. Raw and used.
My lowest lows just keep getting lower. Like every bad day is in competition with the last. How much longer can I cry this time? my brain sneers. Let’s go for two hours instead of one. And each time my eyes betray me, releasing hot tears that are ten times more forceful than the last batch.
Even if it were to get better, the uphill climb looks pretty damn steep. Like I’m standing at the bottom of Mt. Everest, squinting up at its daunting and impossible to reach peak. The snow-capped mountain top glistens against its desolate surroundings, like a diamond sitting atop a mount of coal. I don’t know if I have the perseverance to face that.
I don’t know if I want to.
No, I’d rather stay here in my deep dark chasm of despair buried well beneath the foot of the mountain. Too comfortable in my sadness to escape it. Too defeated to feel like I can. Too tired to even try. It’s my own personal hell, but at least it feels lived in and familiar. I built it from the ground up. I’m not ready to leave. I’m just not.
So, please let it get worse. I am ready to drown in the violent flood, ready to let it take me wherever it wants to. But please do not let it be the last. I am not ready to swim against the flow. I don’t want to fight it. I don’t even know how. I don’t want to learn.
Let me stay here, curled up in fetal position at the bottom of my hole. Then let the hole be filled up, burying me underneath the weight of all my stupid feelings. I will dig myself out when I am ready. But for now, I am not.