Winter solstice- I'm still afraid of the dark
So winter solstice is approaching. This means I am feeling pretty bad. It's not so much that I'm in a full on depression, or that I am physically sick. No, it's more like I am in a continual struggle not to be in either of those states. This is how it usually is for me at this time of year. The Winter Blues. Seasonal Affective Disorder. Whatever you would like to call it. For me, this time of year the darkness follows me. It seems always with me from the moment I wake up until I go to bed.
Philadelphia is not a safe city.
This makes the sense of darkness even worse. People don't leave their homes after dark. Very few people walk on the streets after seven, which is sort of amazing for a city of over 5 million people. The doors are locked. The windows are shut. The blinds are closed.
I have no windows in my office. I sit in a room from 9 to 5, listening to stories of sadness , confusion, pain or doing a seemingly endless pile of paperwork. I sit alone. I sit in artificial light. Literally feeling like there is no escape from the prison that I have chosen.
This year the darkness is tinged with a new emotion. RAGE.
I am so incredibly angry. Like I am being strangled, by some vicious, unseen force desperate to literally crush the life force out of my body.
I am so angry. Despite being for the first time, in a long time, maybe ever, really loved by a man. I feel like he is my life support right now. He doesn't even know it I don't think, but his presence is like life support. It has quite literally kept me breathing.
Because there are times I wake up in the middle of the night and I can not breathe or see or think, and all I can feel is a crushing weight on my chest.
I am so angry because I feel as if I have struggled for so long. Struggled to stay alive, stuggled to thrive, to pay bills, I have never feared work. I have never avoided my duty. I have gone the extra mile. Miles. I feel like I have done everything I can think of and it JUST...WON'T...STOP. Not a moment to breathe. I just wanted something a little better.
And so I question everything. My intention. My profession. My choices. How did I create this monster? How can I stop it?
If I didn't create this, why does it seem like all of these forces fight me every day. And I feel like a child, angry and bewildered and frightened because I just don't know what to do. So I keep trying, and I feel like I have felt this way, and fought this battle my whole life.
For now, I just try to remind myself that the darkness will go away as it always does. I just have to be patient. I just have to endure. The light will come back. But so will, the darkness. The darkness always comes back, too.
NOTE: Pandora is either reading my livejournal, or God has a great IPod as the song that just came on is so appropriate. It gives me a belief in a higher order to the universe.
Philadelphia is not a safe city.
This makes the sense of darkness even worse. People don't leave their homes after dark. Very few people walk on the streets after seven, which is sort of amazing for a city of over 5 million people. The doors are locked. The windows are shut. The blinds are closed.
I have no windows in my office. I sit in a room from 9 to 5, listening to stories of sadness , confusion, pain or doing a seemingly endless pile of paperwork. I sit alone. I sit in artificial light. Literally feeling like there is no escape from the prison that I have chosen.
This year the darkness is tinged with a new emotion. RAGE.
I am so incredibly angry. Like I am being strangled, by some vicious, unseen force desperate to literally crush the life force out of my body.
I am so angry. Despite being for the first time, in a long time, maybe ever, really loved by a man. I feel like he is my life support right now. He doesn't even know it I don't think, but his presence is like life support. It has quite literally kept me breathing.
Because there are times I wake up in the middle of the night and I can not breathe or see or think, and all I can feel is a crushing weight on my chest.
I am so angry because I feel as if I have struggled for so long. Struggled to stay alive, stuggled to thrive, to pay bills, I have never feared work. I have never avoided my duty. I have gone the extra mile. Miles. I feel like I have done everything I can think of and it JUST...WON'T...STOP. Not a moment to breathe. I just wanted something a little better.
And so I question everything. My intention. My profession. My choices. How did I create this monster? How can I stop it?
If I didn't create this, why does it seem like all of these forces fight me every day. And I feel like a child, angry and bewildered and frightened because I just don't know what to do. So I keep trying, and I feel like I have felt this way, and fought this battle my whole life.
For now, I just try to remind myself that the darkness will go away as it always does. I just have to be patient. I just have to endure. The light will come back. But so will, the darkness. The darkness always comes back, too.
NOTE: Pandora is either reading my livejournal, or God has a great IPod as the song that just came on is so appropriate. It gives me a belief in a higher order to the universe.