Two years ago I arrived here.
It is within these strange moments that I seem to regain consciousness.
To regain the awareness that I am,
and that I am not the person who started this journey.
To call it a journey feels in and of itself facetious.
I did not set out on some quest.
To accomplish,
To grow and change.
Perhaps I did at some point set out to recover.
To rebuild my life.
but not truly on some journey.
In these few moments, all I have to offer is that I am no longer the same.
Perhaps that is not a bad thing.
There indeed exists a struggle to rejoin all of the pieces and form one unified story,
Especially within the knowledge that I do not believe this was the trajectory,
I started on.
But do not mistake me as displeased with the place I have found myself.
Though I have exited that dark night not completely intact,
I have exited into a morning, promising a day of sunlight.
Built from the rubble of everything that came before.
I admit that I don’t entirely know what happiness looks like to me-
How do I know I am living well?
But I know that it has been a while since I have felt despair.
I know it has been a while since I have felt the walls close in.